Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
The River Fight
By Henry Howard Brownell (1820–1872)D
If land such region may seem,
Where ’t is neither sea nor strand,
Ocean nor good dry land,
But the nightmare marsh of a dream?
Where the Mighty River his death-road takes,
Mid pools and windings that coil like snakes,
A hundred leagues of bayous and lakes,
To die in the great Gulf Stream?
Granite and deep-sea blue,
On that dismal shore you pass,
Surf-worn boulder or sandy beach,—
But ooze-flats as far as the eye can reach,
With shallows of water-grass;
Reedy savannas, vast and dun,
Lying dead in the dim March sun;
Huge rotting trunks and roots that lie
Like the blackened bones of shapes gone by,
And miles of sunken morass.
Of life o’er the waste is seen;
But the cayman, couched by his weedy spring,
And the pelican, bird unclean,
Or the buzzard, flapping with heavy wing,
Like an evil ghost o’er the desolate scene.
With our leader there we lay,
In the sultry haze and smoke,
Tugging our ships o’er the bar,
Till the spring was wasted far,
Till his brave heart almost broke.
For the sullen river seemed
As if our intent he dreamed,—
All his sallow mouths did spew and choke.
All ground was over at last,
And we knew the die was cast,—
Knew the day drew nigh
To dare to the end one stormy deed,
Might save the land at her sorest need,
Or on the old deck to die!
Would you hear of the River Fight?
It was two of a soft spring night;
God’s stars looked down on all;
And all was clear and bright
But the low fog’s clinging breath:
Up the River of Death
Sailed the Great Admiral.
And round him ranged the men
Who have made their birthright good
Of manhood once and again,—
Lords of helm and of sail,
Tried in tempest and gale,
Bronzed in battle and wreck.
Bell and Bailey grandly led
Each his line of the Blue and Red;
Wainwright stood by our starboard rail;
Thornton fought the deck.
Of the youthful, steadfast ones,
That have shown them worthy sons
Of the seamen passed away.
Tyson conned our helm that day;
Watson stood by his guns.
Looking down on his men?
Since the terrible day,—
(Day of renown and tears!)
When at anchor the Essex lay,
Holding her foes at bay,—
When a boy by Porter’s side he stood,
Till deck and plank-shear were dyed with blood:
’T is half a hundred years,—
Half a hundred years to a day!
Who reckon of life or limb?
Not a pulse but beat the higher!
There had you seen, by the starlight dim,
Five hundred faces strong and grim:
The Flag is going under fire!
Right up by the fort, with her helm hard aport,
The Hartford is going under fire!
Caldwell had broken the chain,
(Two hulks swung down amain
Soon as ’t was sundered).
Under the night’s dark blue,
Steering steady and true,
Ship after ship went through,
Till, as we hove in view,
“Jackson” out-thundered.
Could you have seen our men,
How they sprung, in the dim night haze,
To their work of toil and of clamor!
How the boarders, with sponge and rammer,
And their captains, with cord and hammer,
Kept every muzzle ablaze.
How the guns, as with cheer and shout
Our tackle-men hurled them out,
Brought up on the water-ways!
’T was lightning and black eclipse,
With a bellowing roll and crash.
But soon, upon either bow,
What with forts, and fire-rafts, and ships
(The whole fleet was hard at it, now),
All pounding away!—and Porter
Still thundering with shell and mortar,—
’T was the mighty sound and form!
After long heat and drought,
As day draws nigh to even,
Arching from north to south,
Blinding the tropic sun,
The great black bow comes on,
Till the thunder-veil is riven,—
When all is crash and levin,
And the cannonade of heaven
Rolls down the Amazon!)
Just where the river enlarges,
Down came a pyramid of fire,—
It was one of your long coal barges.
(We had often had the like before.)
’T was coming down on us to larboard,
Well in with the eastern shore;
And our pilot, to let it pass round
(You may guess we never stopped to sound),
Giving us a rank sheer to starboard,
Ran the Flag hard and fast aground!
And straightway a rascal Ram
(She was shaped like the Devil’s dam)
Puffed away for us, with a snort,
And shoved it, with spiteful strength,
Right alongside of us to port.
It was all of our ship’s length,—
A huge crackling Cradle of the Pit!
Pitch-pine knots to the brim,
Belching flame red and grim,—
What a roar came up from it!
But these things are, somehow, shorter
In the acting than in the telling;
There was no singing out or yelling,
Or any fussing and fretting,
No stampede, in short;
But there we were, my lad,
All afire on our port quarter,
Hammocks ablaze in the netting,
Flame spouting in at every port,
Our Fourth Cutter burning at the davit
(No chance to lower away and save it).
Half-way to maintop and mizzen,
Darting up the shrouds like snakes!
Ah, how we clanked at the brakes,
And the deep steaming-pumps throbbed under,
Sending a ceaseless flow.
Our top-men, a dauntless crowd,
Swarmed in rigging and shroud:
There, (’t was a wonder!)
The burning ratlines and strands
They quenched with their bare, hard hands;
But the great guns below
Never silenced their thunder!
When we were clear of grounding,
And under headway once more,
The whole rebel fleet came rounding
The point. If we had it hot before,
’T was now, from shore to shore,
One long, loud thundering roar,—
Such crashing, splintering, and pounding,
And smashing as you never heard before!
And to save the land we loved so well,
You might have deemed our long gun-deck
Two hundred feet of hell!
Broadside, and blaze, and rattle,
Smoke and thunder alone;
(But, down in the sick-bay,
Where our wounded and dying lay,
There was scarce a sob or a moan.)
And at last, when the dim day broke,
And the sullen sun awoke,
Drearily blinking
O’er the haze and the cannon-smoke,
That ever such morning dulls,—
There were thirteen traitor hulls
On fire and sinking!
Sputters a vain resistance yet.
Small helm we gave her, our course to steer,—
’T was nicer work than you well would dream,
With cant and sheer to keep her clear
Of the burning wrecks that cumbered the stream.
Mounts in thunder to meet the sky!
Then down to the depths of the turbid flood,—
Fifty fathom of rebel mud!
The Mississippi comes floating down,
A mighty bonfire, from off the town;
And along the river, on stocks and ways,
A half-hatched devil’s brood is ablaze,—
The great Anglo-Norman is all in flames,
(Hark to the roar of her tumbling frames!)
And the smaller fry that Treason would spawn
Are lighting Algiers-like an angry dawn!
Fired by the furious hands that built!
So to ashes forever turn
The suicide wrecks of wrong and guilt!
By field and vast plantation,
(Ah, millstone of our Nation!)
With wonder and with pity,
What crowds we there espied
Of dark and wistful faces,
Mute in their toiling places,
Strangely and sadly eyed.
Haply, mid doubt and fear,
Deeming deliverance near.
(One gave the ghost of a cheer.)
To greet the victor brave
One flag did welcome wave,—
Raised, ah me! by a wretched hand,
All outworn on our cruel land,—
The withered hand of a slave!
In a dark and drenching rain
(By this, ’t was pouring heavy),
Stood a fierce and sullen train.
A strange and frenzied time!
There were scowling rage and pain,
Curses howls, and hisses,
Out of hate’s black abysses,—
Their courage and their crime
All in vain,—all in vain!