The Lancaster gazette. [volume] (Lancaster, Ohio) 1863-1886, 1864-03-10
THE GLORIOUS I7th.
BY MRS. A. H. DEvELLlNG.

List TO the roaring cannon's booml
The clear, shrill fife The stirring druml
The clarion's sound the bugle's note,
With streaming banners all afoatl
And why this vast assembled crowd,
With shouts exultant, long and loud!
The Seventeenth They come they comet
Welcome! joyful welcome home
Yes, they come back to us amid
the joyous shouts and acclamations of
thousands, TO receive the gladstone,
kindly greeting Of loving hearts, that
well up with grateful emotions as each
dear hand is grasped, and the cherish
ed forms Of long absent ones meet the
earnest gaze; while the silent tear
speaks still more eloquently theheart's
warm welcome as they stand before us
in all their manliness and beauty, and
we proudly gaze upon, and claim them
as our own! our nobly bravel
Tearfully and with trembling we
parted from them two years ago, for
we knew full well, as those well-filled
ranks passed before us, with majestic
step and bearing, strong in health and
cheerful in spirit; with flushed hopes
and high expectations for the future;
a gallant, noble band, ready at their
country's call for valorous deeds of
bravery and daring, with fixed pur-
pose to aid in crushing this unholy re-
bellion, and to restore again our befov-
ed Union to peace, happiness, and
prosperity, or die in the attempt, that
they would never return to us again
as they went
Yet who among them all once dream
ed Of the numberless hardships, the
dangers, the privations and sufferings
that during those long, long, weary
months, they would of necessity be
called upon to endure, in long and
painful marches, through the dreary
and chilling rains of winter, and in
tolerable thirst and oppressive heat of
summer; of the long, restless, weari-
some days, and sleepless nights in the
hospital, with no loving hand near to
smooth the aching brow, to cool the
fevered lip, or speak to the heart rt-sick
soul words ofcheeing comfort.
They went from as, Joyous and hope
full, amid our prayers and tears. With
what faithfulness and patriotic zeal,
what earnestness, devotion and self
sacrifice have they accomplished their
noble work, and filed the part assign
ed them in this fearful dramal Let
the blood -staincd field Of Corinth an
swer, where company of its advanc-
ed skirmishcrs came upon the ambush
ed foe, and for three long hours man
fully held their position in an open
field, receiving their murderous fire,
and as coolly and promptly returning
it, though outnumbered three to one,
till at length ovcrpowered by fresh
troops, and in danger Of being sur
rounded, and cut off from the advanc-
ing Regiment, they were compelled to
retreat. Let the fierce and bloody
strife at Stone River, and also at
Hoover's Gap, tell of their unhinching
courage and braveryi And again,
amid the horrid carnage on the banks
of the memorable Chickamauga, where
for long, weary hours, they stood fear
less and unmoved, like o wall of ada
mant, tho last to quit tho field; and
where one of their bravest and noblest,
the gallant Ricketts,, fill amid a show
er of bullets, from whose deadly aim it
would seem not ono could escape; and
when cverpowcred by numbers, reluct-
antly driven back; rallying again with
rcdoubled zeal; and by such daring
acts ofundaunted courage and bravery
turning Che apparent defeat into a
glorious victory, though not without
heavy and severe loss, thus saving the
"Army Of the Cumberland" from utter
anuihilation and ruin. And also in
that more than glorious asccnt,-that
unparalleled and most brilliantachieve-
rnent of all this bloody war, the fear
ful charge up Mission Ridge, where
the brave Butterfeld fell, tnortally
wounded, eXclaiming to those who
fain would have borne him from the
field, "Let me lie here, till I SEQ the
glorious stripes and stars floating from
yonder ridge" and where many no
BILE boy poured out his blood;
there, up that rugged steep, the noble
18th rushed wildly on, and woro among
the first to scale the summit, and to
assist in planting the banner of free
dom and victory on it's blood-stained
height, amid the shouts of exulting
triumph, "a vag.{ .h.e} /
Well have they earned the noble
need Of praise! and the waving ban
ners, the cannon's boom, and the sweet