The Confederate Graveyard Near Calera

The Confederate Graveyard Near Calera 

(inspired by Robert Lowell's "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket")

 

I.

 A muddy stretch of road east of Vicksburg⸺

The heat of July marched onward in the night

And paced quickstep alongside the 54th. 

As the private grasped his empty flask, light

Flashed above his sweaty brow⸺mortar fire

From the river below.

A cracking of thunder bellowed in time.

A corpse lies nearby, disheveled grey and white.

Its hands covered in grime,

Still clenched as though in flight

Or perhaps gripping a phantom rifle

To thrust like a spear. The squad moves forward

Double-time into the night's acrid stench.

Some limped, singed by the grapeshot Vulcan poured

Into the column as they fled their trench,

Glad to escape the forge.

Soldiers, who are sullen in their retreat

Can take comfort that they

Did not accept defeat.

When you are powerless

To effect the change of a futile campaign,

Cursed by Jupiter, and climbing in vain

From the depths of Etna's bowels in pursuit

Of a lost cause, keep dodging the hated Yanks.

Quick time! Now close your ranks⸺

A limp salute. 

II.

Whenever magnolias are in their bloom

The creeping phlox will form a subtle mound

Of mild deference around these gray tomb-

Stones. Soldier, did you claim this patch of ground

When Wilfred defied his own Saxon blood

For a Norman lord, or trudge through the mud

In France or to lay siege to Acre's walls? 

Did you unsheathe your sword of Sheffield steel

When Beauregard opened fire on Sumter 

And pledge oaths like 'until the last man falls?' 

As the trains crept out of Vicksburg that night 

And rattled and groaned away from the fight, 

Homeward. The tracks kept time inside your bones,

Soldier, to drum a rhythm with your heart 

which still yearns to this day to play your part 

In this Old Soldier's Graveyard where the stones 

Reach forth this way and that for our lost cause,

Stretching for Saxon heroes without pause.

III. 

All you accomplished at Manassas died 

With you, my soldier, and this hallowed ground

Is barren save for these clumps of mottled phlox

Sprawling outward to castles in England,

Here in Alabama, yet these old rocks  

Worn, and mossed on one side

Plead to be told not as tales of our dead,

But as histories of heroes, who'd toss and tilt 

Lancers upon their head,

Unhorsed with broken hilt.

Well versed in Scott may have primed them for the joust,

But whatever these Southern soldiers lost 

After the hurried push from Vicksburg, they died 

When life was still wide-eyed,

Verdant and boyish, and rushing to ride 

headlong into the pitch. Regardless the cost,

the knights rode first while the cannons were doused,

Timing the charge for the run-out. Some were tossed 

Over the pickets, lost in the blue-grey smoke.

I can almost hear their Rebel's cry:

"Deo Vindice! God and our native land,

Deo Vindice! God and our native land,

We who sent the Cairo to the murk, why,

fall now to a stick of brass and oak?

IV.

This marks the end of our warriors and their war,

Once callow until Yankee cannons tore

Festive flesh from bone and split through their ranks.

These who once routed an entire Union corps,

This is the end for them. Likewise the Yanks 

Search for the legs which bore 

Them southward, and now northward from this war,

Pursued by ghosts of Rebels at their heels,

Conquering cowards shall dance the reels:

Vincimus, dear God, let those cannons pour 

Their fury once more to cripple this chase.