- description
- # Stonewall Jackson.
## Overview
This segment is a poem titled "Stonewall Jackson." It is part of the larger collection "[Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.](arke:01KG8AJ6FNQ0XKWBY52P8DRPC9)" and was extracted from the file "[battle_pieces_and_aspects_of_the_war.txt](arke:01KG89J1G8S4TRWXNCBRKCRKS8)". The poem is divided into two parts, each reflecting on the figure of Stonewall Jackson.
## Context
The poem "Stonewall Jackson." is included within "[Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.](arke:01KG8AJ6FNQ0XKWBY52P8DRPC9)", a collection of poems by Herman Melville. This collection, and thus this poem, is part of the larger "[Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW)" archival entity. The poem is situated between "Running the Batteries, As observed from the Anchorage above Vicksburgh." (prev) and "Gettysburg. The Check." (next).
## Contents
The poem "Stonewall Jackson." is presented in two distinct sections. The first section, dated May 1863, reflects on Jackson's death after being mortally wounded at Chancellorsville. It acknowledges his fierce fighting but questions the praise of someone who fought for a cause deemed "Wrong." The second section, attributed to a Virginian, offers a more complex portrayal of Jackson, describing him as a man of "wrought renown" with an "iron will and lion thew." It traces his military campaigns, including the Romney march, the Shenandoah Valley campaign, battles at Gaines' Mill and Manassas, and his actions leading to Antietam and Marye's slope. The poem concludes by acknowledging the enduring debate over the righteousness of the Civil War and Jackson's role within it.
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- Stonewall Jackson.
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- text
- Stonewall Jackson.
Mortally wounded at Chancellorsville.
(May, 1863.)
The Man who fiercest charged in fight,
Whose sword and prayer were long--
Stonewall!
Even him who stoutly stood for Wrong,
How can we praise? Yet coming days
Shall not forget him with this song.
Dead is the Man whose Cause is dead,
Vainly he died and set his seal--
Stonewall!
Earnest in error, as we feel;
True to the thing he deemed was due,
True as John Brown or steel.
Relentlessly he routed us;
But _we_ relent, for he is low--
Stonewall!
Justly his fame we outlaw; so
We drop a tear on the bold Virginian’s bier,
Because no wreath we owe.
Stonewall Jackson.
(Ascribed to a Virginian.)
One man we claim of wrought renown
Which not the North shall care to slur;
A Modern lived who sleeps in death,
Calm as the marble Ancients are:
’Tis he whose life, though a vapor’s wreath,
Was charged with the lightning’s burning breath--
Stonewall, stormer of the war.
But who shall hymn the roman heart?
A stoic he, but even more:
The iron will and lion thew
Were strong to inflict as to endure:
Who like him could stand, or pursue?
His fate the fatalist followed through;
In all his great soul found to do
Stonewall followed his star.
He followed his star on the Romney march
Through the sleet to the wintry war;
And he followed it on when he bowed the grain--
The Wind of the Shenandoah;
At Gaines’s Mill in the giant’s strain--
On the fierce forced stride to Manassas-plain,
Where his sword with thunder was clothed again,
Stonewall followed his star.
His star he followed athwart the flood
To Potomac’s Northern shore,
When midway wading, his host of braves
“_My Maryland!_” loud did roar--
To red Antietam’s field of graves,
Through mountain-passes, woods and waves,
They followed their pagod with hymns and glaives,
For Stonewall followed a star.
Back it led him to Marye’s slope,
Where the shock and the fame he bore;
And to green Moss-Neck it guided him--
Brief respite from throes of war:
To the laurel glade by the Wilderness grim,
Through climaxed victory naught shall dim,
Even unto death it piloted him--
Stonewall followed his star.
Its lead he followed in gentle ways
Which never the valiant mar;
A cap we sent him, bestarred, to replace
The sun-scorched helm of war:
A fillet he made of the shining lace
Childhood’s laughing brow to grace--
Not his was a goldsmith’s star.
O, much of doubt in after days
Shall cling, as now, to the war;
Of the right and the wrong they’ll still debate,
Puzzled by Stonewall’s star:
“Fortune went with the North elate”
“Ay, but the south had Stonewall’s weight,
And he fell in the South’s vain war.”
- title
- Stonewall Jackson.