Page:Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.djvu/51

 The old sharpshooting going on.

Some plan afoot as yet unknown;

So Friday closed round Donelson.

LATER.

Great suffering through the night—

A stinging one. Our heedless boys

Were nipped like blossoms. Some dozen

Hapless wounded men were frozen.

During day being struck down out of sight,

And help-cries drowned in roaring noise,

They were left just where the skirmish shifted—

Left in dense underbrush now-drifted.

Some, seeking to crawl in crippled plight,

So stiffened—perished.

Yet in spite

Of pangs for these, no heart is lost.

Hungry, and clothing stiff with frost,

Our men declare a nearing sun

Shall see the fall of Donelson.

And this they say, yet not disown

The dark redoubts round Donelson,

And ice-glazed corpses, each a stone—

A sacrifice to Donelson;

They swear it, and swerve not, gazing on

A flag, deemed black, flying from Donelson.