"CHARGE OF HACOOD'S BRlGADE"
By Joseph Blyth Allston, 1864
Part of Civil War @ Charleston Website
This poem was written to commemorate the charge of Hagood's Brigade made near Petersburg to recapture a section of the Weldon Railroad behind the Federal entrenchments. A prose description of that charge is found on the 27th. S.C. Volunteer Infantry's webpage.
Scarce seven hundred men they stand
In tattered, rude. array,
The remnant of that gallant band
Who erstwhile held the sea-girt strand
Of Morris' Isle with iron hand
'Gainst Yankees' hated sway.
Secessionville their banner claims,
And Sumter, held 'mid smoke and flames,
And the dark battle on the streams Of Pocotaligo
:
and Walthal's Junction's hard-earned fight
and Drewry"s Bluff's embattled height,
When, at the gray dawn of the light,
They rushed upon the foe.
Tattered and torn those banners now.
But not less proud each lofty brow,
Untaught as yet to yield:
with mien unblenched, unfaltering eye,
F'orvvard, where bombshells shrieking fly,
Flecking with smoke the azure sky
On Weldon's fated field.
Sweeps from the woods the bold array,
Not theirs to falter in the fray,
No men more sternly trained than they
To meet their deadly doom;
While, from a hundred throats agape,
A hundred sulphurous flames escape
Round shot, and canister, and grape,
The thundering cannon's boom
Swift, on their flank, with fearful crash
Shrapnel and ball commingling clash,
And bursting shells, with lurid flash,
Their dazzled sight confound:
Trembles the earth beneath their feet,
Along their front a rattling sheet
Of leaden hail concentric meet.
And numbers strew the ground.
On, o'er the dying and the dead,
O'er mangled limb and gory head,
With martial look, with martial tread,
March Hagood's men to bloody bed,
Honor their sole reward;
Himself doth lead their battle line,
Himself those banners guard.
They win the height, those gallant few,
A fiercer struggle to renew,
Resolved as gallant men to do
Or sink- in glory's shroud;
But scarcely gain its stubborn crest,
Ere, from the ensign's murdered breast,
An impious foe has dared to wrest That banner proud.
Upon him, Hagood, in thy might!
Flash on thy soul the immortal light
Of those brave deeds that blazon bright
Our Southern Cross.
He dies. Unfurl its folds again,
Let it wave proudly o'er the plain;
The dying shall forget their pain,
Count not their loss.
Then, rallying to your chieftain's call,
Ploughed through by cannon-shot and ball,
Hemmed in, as by a living wall,
Cleave back your way.
Those bannered deeds their souls inspire,
Borne, amid sheets of forked fire,
By the Two Hundred who retire
Of that array.
Ah, Carolina! well the tear
May dew thy cheek; thy clasped hands rear
in passion, o'er their tombless bier,
Thy fallen chivalry!
Maloney mirror of the brave,
And Sellers lie in glorious grave;
No prouder fate than theirs, who gave
Their lives for Liberty
Return to:
27th. South Carolina Page
Civil War @ Charleston Main Page