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53. Fort Pillow.

Ah! just as long as history owns a record,
     This foulest shame upon the South shall rest,
That writ, in blood and flame, the fiendish motto,
     No pity, none, upon the rebel crest.

Not for the wounded, and the sick and dying!
     Not for brave prisoners craft but forced to yield!
Nor women and young children! then, O Southron!
     Go, blazon Chivalry upon your shield!

Is this the foe whose wounded we have tended?
     Is this the foe whose prisoned we have fed?
Whose women and whose children we have succored,
     When their own soldiers robbed them of their bread?

O the brave hearts they riddled with their bullets!
     O the sick forms they mangled where they lay!
Their murdered blood cries up to God, Avenge us!
     Cries out to you, O brothers! night and day.

Then grasp your muskets and belt on your sabres,
     For fiercely burns the hate of desperate men;
But go not forth to murder and to pillage,
     Nay, leave such bandit-deeds to such as them.

Brave hearts ne'er yet were cruel to the vanquished;
     Ye will not stain the dear old flag ye bear
With crimes that would disgrace the martial manhood,
     That took that flag from fingers young and fair.

Let none at home prate peace and compromising,
     When rebel tactics is to butcher men!
Nay, rally, freemen, in one grand uprising,
     For the world wills that we should conquer them!

O bearded faces, brown but kind and tender!
     Through weary marches, our prayers march with you,
And sweet lips cry from home: Dear braves, remember,
     As you to country, we to you are true.

Lizzie P.
Sidney, Ohio, April 26.

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