AMERICAN WAR BALLADSAND LYRICS

A COLLECTION OF THE SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE COLONIAL WARS, THE REVOLUTION, THE WAR OF 1812-15, THE WAR WITH MEXICO AND THE CIVIL WAR

EDITED BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON VOLUME II.

NEW YORK AND LONDON G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS The Knickerbocker Press

Copyright G. P. Putnam’s Sons 1889

The Knickerbocker Press, New York Electrotyped and Printed by G. P. Putnam’s Sons

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Typogravures by W. Kurtz.

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PART II.

THE CIVIL WAR

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LYON.

By HENRY PETERSON.

MY MARYLAND.

By JAMES R. RANDALL.

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BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

By JULIA WARD HOWE.

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THE PICKET GUARD.

By ETHEL LYNN BEERS.

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THE COUNTERSIGN.

[In his admirably edited collection of poems of the civil war, entitled “Bugle Echoes,” Mr. Francis F. Browne introduces this poem with the following note:

“There has been no little dispute as to the authorship of this poem. The Philadelphia Press, in 1861, said it was ‘written by a private in Company G, Stuart’s engineer regiment, at Camp Lesley, near Washington.’ But it may now be stated positively that it was written by a Confederate soldier, still living. The poem is usually printed in a very imperfect form, with the fourth, fifth, and sixth stanzas omitted. The third line of the fifth stanza affords internal evidence of Southern origin.”—Editor.]

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THE COUNTERSIGN.

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JONATHAN TO JOHN.

By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

[This poem is a part of the second series of “The Bigelow Papers,” a work wholly unmatched in the literature of humor, that has an earnest purpose and well matured thought for its sources of inspiration. The poem was called forth by what is known as “the Trent affair.” Captain Wilkes, commanding the United States man-of-war, San Jacinto, boarded the British mail steamer Trent on the 8th of November, 1861, and took from her the Confederate commissioners Mason and Slidell. Great Britain resented the act, and for a time there was serious apprehension of war between that country and the United States; but as the seizure of the commissioners on board a neutral vessel was deemed to be an act in violation of international law, the Government at Washington, after inquiry into the facts, surrendered the prisoners. The version of the poem here given is a correct one, taken from the collected edition of Mr. Lowell’s poems. An abridged and otherwise imperfect version is given in many collections.—Editor.]

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JONATHAN TO JOHN.

THERE’S LIFE IN THE OLD LAND YET.

By JAMES R. RANDALL.

[First printed in the Richmond Examiner. Written while the author was in prison.]

NEVER OR NOW.

By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

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