The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1895-05-09
sIXTY-oNE TO sIXTY-FIvE.


When they fred the Sumter gum
And the younger bloods enlisted just for ninety
days of fun,
Just three months of recreation for the wiser ones
asserted
That twas not a serious matter and war could be
averted
Then how eagerly they volunteered, how con-
fdentiy said
There would be but little fighting and still less of
blood to shed.
And their hearts beat high with valor when they
went ont parade,
And their pulses danced and quvered when the
drums and buGles played;
And how brightly sIone their uniforms that sunny
April day,
When they kissed their sweethearts gaily and as
gaiiy marched away.
The fife aud drum marched on before, the baggage
train behind,
While The Girl Left Behind Me" came a-rip-
pling down the wind.
They left with coiors flying; nlas, they could not
That the would not be over in ninety days or
less.
In the days of sixty-two,
When those dashing fellows knew
What job they'd undertaken and what they had
to DO,
When new recruits were wanted on the land and
on the sea-
To stay until the show was out. whenever that
might be;
When days were dark and Uncle Sam was calling
troops again,
And had issued invitations to "three hundred
thousand men,"
Then the husbands and the fathers nobly came to
offer aid
To those gallant early volunteers and they rs nobly
stayed;
They were fighting for their country. that was all
they cared TO know,
And the war seemed less like ending than It did
year ago.
Their uniforms were rusty now. their pulses beat
ing slow,
For they had captured Donelson and conquered at
Shiloh.
Long ago In sixty-three,
Long ago. 1t seems to me.
Who was only then an infant on anxious mothers
knee,
While that mother watched and waited for the
words of tongue pen
From her soldier who was leading on q gallant
hundred men,
Men who marched and left behind them every dol
lar they were worth
Left their wives, their homes, their children, all
the dearest ties of earth;
They said good-by. the busles played. he marched
them down the plain;
All. well he knew that many there would not
march back agninl
He wounded in the battle where they charged
mid shot and she'll
But. thank God he missed the prison that was
dreaded worse than hell.
In those days of sixty three
That long ago to me.
million men were fighting on the land and on
the sea,
And prisoners began TO fill the prisons South and
North.
And the well-fed Northern soldier was accounted
double worth
The boys of the Confederacy. whose ratons had
been few,
But who now found better table and great deal
less to do.
SO their constitutions mended. but much regret
to say,
Twas a very different story in those prisons far
away.
Down in Anderson and Libby they had entered on
fast,
And were living on the mem'ries of the rations
that had passed.
And change was soon made manifes. throughout
the prison ranks: y
A prison Reb worth much as two poor
prison Yanks-
And when the time came for exchange, the North
ern powers declared
That the boys in Southern prison pens SO wretch
edly had Jared
They totally disabled, aud that every fat
Confed
Was worth ~ much as two men who were moro
than two-thirds dead.
Ana tue North-I shame to say it-let them slowly |
perish there.