The Boy Bugler of Bull Run

Behind us, in his iron hand,
     Held Lee his thunderbolts of war;
Down from the hills the tiger band
Of Longstreet bounded, and the grand
     Grim “Stonewall” coiled his strength before.

Our brave New Egland boys were there,
     Hemmed round by rebel fire and stell;
There Siegel, stronger than despair,
Clung to the serpent in his lair,
     That made the strength of Hooker reel.

In splendor rose the August sun,
     Purpling the far Virginian peaks.
And dyeing that disastrous Run,
Dyed redder, ere the day was done,
     With loyal blood that lives and speaks.

Full on the rebel line we march,
     While cannon shot and screaming shell
Our steady climbing overarch,
And hew our path through pine and larch,
     Where silent glows the traitor’s hell.

But, close before its volleyed fire,
     At once it roars like Aetna’s throat,
When all the central flames conspire
To hurl the mountain’s quivering spire
     In fragments over vales remote.

Down through our ranks the sheeted flame
     Poured, rending shell and stinging cone,—
Infernal hail!—with deadly aim, 
That tore our columns when it came,
     As over corn the wild cyclone!

O God! our gallants reel before
     That storm of fire! They pause, they break!
“Charge for your starry flag once more!
A nation shudders in the roar;
     To death, or victory, for her sake!”

So sang a bugle’s charging note,
     Pressed to the red lips of a child.
Out where the thickest death-rain smote,
He climbed, and led us down the throat 
     Of the red hell that round us boiled!

Ah, dauntless boy! To-morrow’s sun
     Shall gild thy battered bugle, hung
Above a nameless grave; and one
Who saw thy gallant action done
Shall stain it with a tear; for none
     Fell worthier! O, so brave and young!