The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-03-30
For The Evening Telegraph.
SHERIDAN'S LAST RIDE.
BY SHENANDOAH.

Now scattered and torn like the sifted sand;
The wandering winds with warnings wake
The ghosts of his murdered kin, I who spaks: -
'Fly fly for the morn bringeth fresh dismay
From Sheridan ninety miles away"
A thousand horsemen, with weapons bright
In the frore and frosted morning light,
Ride over the frosty-sheeted ground
With shuddering smouldering sullen sound
They have seen the tents in the nights cold
noon,
And backward ride meath the yelled moon,
Prepared to pounce, like bird of prey,
On the fated village at break of day.
The Indian sire saw the countless throng
Like the trees of the forest, many and strong;
He stood like hunted hind at bay,
Then sent this message without delay
aye are many, and we are few;
Ye can drink our blood as the sun the dew,
But we have our women and children small,
A hundred and thirteen souls in all;
My handful of warriors are strong and brave,
They will fight my helpless people to save;
There's no fear in the chieftain's eye,
1 cannot fight, for will not lie.
1 came with this pledge only yesterday,
From the father ninety miles away"
No answer came: in another breath
They swept to their wretched work of death
With msddening shout and deafening YELL
Like the dire and dreadful fends of hell;
And babes from their mothers breasts were
torn,
And sires were scalped in the light of morn.
The ground was crimsoned with their blood,
And the river Redeemed with its flood.
Mangled forms lay bleeding and bare,
With ghostly, ghastly, sickening glare;
And one rode foremost among them all,
Urging them on with shout and call,
On foaming charger that seemed to say,
81 have brought you Custer all the way
At the head OF thousand armed men,
With orders traced with bloody pen,
These trembling mothers and babes to slay,
From Sheridan, ninety miles away
Alas alas for the deeds that were done
That day at the rising of the sun;
The tongue shall falter, the pen shall fail,
And lips grow white when they tell the tale
How friend and foe on the field did lie,
All mapgled and mingled to faint and die;
The victors, painting their fame to spread,
Gave no heed to the dying, no thought to the
dead.
Great God was there none their hands to stay,
With Sheridan ninety miles away?
Their cruel and thirsty carnage o'er,
Backward the warriors ride once more;
They pilfered the lightning from the skies
And flooded the country with flaming lies,
In these words blazoned all over the land
"We have met hostile Indian band
Five hundred, counting women and all,
A hundred warriors armed did fall;
The frontiers safe, for we gained the day
With Sheridan ninety miles away"
VII.
There was Joy in the camp of Sheridan
When the branded minions appeared again,
With their Usage allies,t drunken with blood,
And the liquid hell-fre's maddening flood
With the CORY scalp of the Indian sire;
Like demons they danced till the dawn of day,
And Sheridan there, not a word to say.
VIII.
The maiden moon took time to unfold
Her silvery bow to disc of gold,
When Sheridan rode, meath her shining
shield,
Seeking his dead on the bloody field;
Their souls like vapor before his eyes
Arose, with shivering, sad surprise,
To show where their forms were shrouded in
blood,
The prey of the wolves and the vulture's food.
Fifteen days did brave Elliott lay, t
And Sheridan ninety miles away.
All honor to those who with sword or pen
Rise up to defend the rights of men,
Who succor the weak and battle the strong,
Sustaining the right, denouncing the wrong,
Who would fly the Indians life to save
From the lswless murderers' conquering
glaive;
But chiefly honor the glorious threeS
The valiant sons of nation free.
One, far in the fiery, flaming south,
Who flew to rescue from deaths dark mouth
The hunted few of an Indian band,
When the Texan Rangers were close at hand;
And him, the special and msrtyred one,
Whose name now shines like the flaming
sun,
And him. the Youngest whom gold could