The National tribune., 1901-06-20

mately associated with his wife's kins-
man, Theodore O'Hara, soldier, journalist
and poet, author Of the immortal poem,
The BivOuac of the Dead Very i'm
prcssively the ''Sodier-surgcon' would
quote the lyric entire, as follows:
The mufiled drums sad roll has beat
The soldiers, last tattool
No more on life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame'S eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And glory guards with solemn round,
The bivOuac of the dead.
''No rumor of the foes advance,
Now swells upon the wind;
No troubled thought at midnight haunts
OF loved ones left behind;
No vision of the morrow's strife
The warriors dream alarms;
Nor braying horn, nor screaming fife,
At dawn shall call to arms.
"Their shivered swords are red with rust
Their plumed heads are bowed
Their naughty banner trailed in dust.
Is now their martial shrOud-
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms in battle gashed
Are free from anguish now.
'"The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din, the shout are past
Nor wars wild note, nor glOry's peal,
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that never more shall feel
The rapture of the fight.
"Like the fierce northern hurricane
That sweeps his great plateau,
Finished with the TriUmDh a pair
Came down the serried foe
Who heard the thunder Of the fray
Break DER the field beneath.
Knew well the watchword of that day
Was Victory or death
"Long has the doubtful conflict ragged
Ger all that stricken plain,
For never fercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;
And Still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the CORY tide;
Not long our stout old cheftain knew
Such odds his strength could bide.
''Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyrs grave
The flower of his beloved land,
The Nations flag TO save.
By rivers of their fathers gore
His first born laurels grew,
And well he deemed that sons would pour
HSIL 4iNtS IOL SIOlss bOO"
HFull many a norther's breath hath swept
Ger Angostura'S plain
And long the pitying sky has wept
Above the moldering slain.
The ravens scream, or eagles fight,
Or shepherds pensiye lay,
Alone awakes each sullen hight
That frowned DER that dread fray.
"Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground
Ye must not slumber there,
Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the needless air;
Your own proud lands heroic soil
Shall be your filter grave;
She claims from war his richest spoil
The ashes of her brave.
"Thus meath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the CORY field,
Borne to Spartan mothers breast
On many a bloody shield;
The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The hero's sepulcher.
"Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead,
Dear as the blood you gave;
No impious footsteps here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While Fame her record Keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where ValOr proudly sleeps.
"You marble minstrel's voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanished age hath flown,
The story how 'ye fell.
Nor wreck, nor change, nor Winters
blight,
Nor Times remorseless doom,
Can dim one ray of holy light
That gids your glorious tomb"
When first published the foregoing i'm
mortal lyric was prefaced with these
words: Lines written at the tomb of the
Kentuckians who fell at Buena Vista,
buried in the cemetery at Frankfort"
/ have given the entire poem, because
II is impersonal and can be made to ap-
ply TO all who have died in battle-because
of its applicability to the Blue and the
Gray as well as TO the Kentuckians-the
Americans who fought the battle of Buena
Vista at "Angostura Pass" The allusion
TO "Old Rough and Ready"-Gen. Taylor,
can be made with like prOpriety TO the
Federal Generals, Reynolds, Mcpherson,
Kearny. Lytle, and others, and to the
Confederates Johnston, Jackson, Gle
burne. Stuart and Morgan. Lines of the
poem are conspicuously inscribed on gate
ways to Northern and Southern ceme-
teries-notably at Arlington:
'Nor shall their glory be forgot
While fame her record keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Nalor proudly sleeps"
O'Hara, a native Kentuckian, was
severely wounded in Mexico, and after he
returned home he visited the new-made
graves OF his dead comrades in the Gene
terry at Kentucky's Capital city, where he
was inspired to write his glorious lyric
his best poem. He was serving on the
staff of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston
when that brilliant Confederate officer
was killed at Shiloh.
FOR THE sToMACH's SAKE"
Medical supplies were usually scarce in
Dixie, but Surgeon Scott generally man
aged TO secure an order of impressment," I"
which was successfully executed by
raid OH a sequestered "moonshine' dis
tillery, the ''frewater" thus captured"
being transferred to the Surgeons wagon.
He was annoyed sometimes by the schem-
ing boys" who were perennially afflicted
with thirst that nothing but "moonshine
liquor" could allay. Pretending to be sick,
they would plaintiyely suggest that