army-blue.
On the bloody field of Fair Oaks
Sleeps the soldier tried and true.

GRIERSON'S RAID

Mount to horse--mount to horse;
Forward, Battalion!
Gallop the gallant force;
Down with Rebellion!
Over hill, creek and plain
Clatter the fearless--
Dash away--splash away--
Led by the Peerless.

Carbines crack--foemen fly
Hither and thither;
Under the death-fire
They falter and wither.
Burn the bridge--tear the track--
Down with Rebellion!
Cut the wires--cut the wires!
Forward, Battalion!
Day and night--night and day,
Gallop the fearless--
Swimming the rivers' floods--
Led by the Peerless;
Depots and powder-trains
Blazing and thundering
Masters and dusky slaves
Gazing and wondering.
Eight hundred miles they ride--
Dauntless Battalion--
Down through the Southern Land
Mad with Rebellion.
Into our lines they dash--
Brave Cavaliers--
Greeting our flag with
A thunder of cheers.

THE OLD FLAG

[Written July 4, 1863.]

Have ye heard of Fort Donelson's desperate fight,
Where the giant Northwest bared his arm for the right,
Where thousands so bravely went down in the slaughter,
And the blood of the West ran as freely as water;
Where the Rebel Flag fell and our banner arose
O'er an army of captured and suppliant foes?
Lo--torn by the shot and begrimed by the powder,
The Old Flag is waving there prouder and prouder.

Heard ye of Shiloh, where fierce Beauregard
O'erwhelmed us with numbers and pressed us so hard,
Till our veteran supporters came up to our aid
And the tide of defeat and disaster was staid--
Where like grain-sheaves the slaughtered were piled on the plain
And the brave rebel Johnston went down with the slain?
Lo--torn by the shot and begrimed by the powder,
The Old Flag is waving there prouder and prouder.

Heard ye the cannon-roar down by Stone River?
Saw ye the bleeding braves stagger and quiver?
Heard ye the shout and the roar and the rattle?
And saw ye the desperate surging of battle?
Volley on volley and steel upon steel--
Breast unto breast--how they lunge and they reel!
Lo--torn by the shot and begrimed by the powder,
The Old Flag is waving there prouder and prouder.

Heard ye of Vicksburg--the Southern Gibraltar,
Where the hands of our foemen built tyranny's altar,
Where their hosts are walled in by a cordon of braves,
And the pits they have dug for defense are their graves,
Where the red bombs are bursting and hissing the shot,