from brave Lancaster,
In the army of the Union.
Other men perchance from Garrard,
From the inland hillside city,
Took up arms to save the Union,
Fought the desperate seceders.
Far and near the slogan sounded,
Long and loud the fatal summons,
Till around each fireside lonely,
Soon a "vacant chair" was standing;
Till the only free retainers
Were the women and the children;
Till the crippled and the aged
Were the guardians of the homesteads.
* * * * *
How the shadows of the picture
Darken o'er the southern landscape!
How the "Lost Cause" sheds a gloaming
On the erst illumed horizon!
All about the stricken region
Hangs the doom of vanquished power;
All throughout the conquered country
Sounds the knell of fruitless bloodshed.
Mothers mourn their slaughtered first-born,
Wives lament their martyred husbands,
Sisters guard the worn grey jackets,
Maidens prize the blood-stained tresses.
Farmers, planters, cultivators--
All the men of thrift and profit,
Grieve above the desolation,
Deep bewail the fruits so bitter.
Furrows in the soil may ripen,
With a renovated harvest;
Furrows in the heart are open,
With a ceaseless, arid planting.
Wind and rain and shower and sunshine,
Soon give back the laborer's treasure;
None of nature's sweet restorers,
Bring alas! the mourner's idols.
From the North were foreign legions,
Swarming on to bayonet charges;
From the South the fostered nurselings
Of the native born American.
Every drop of blood a rending
Of the ties of pure affection;
Every pillowed head a token
Of "Somebody's Darling," stricken;
Every "Picket Guard" on duty,
Joined in dreams an absent "Mary,"
Every hospital and barrack,
Held the hope of some fond household.
Captain Matthew David Logan,
Major and Lieutenant-colonel,
Long a citizen of Garrard,
Long a practicing physician,
Led a band of Southern-Rights-men
To the troubled land of Dixie;
Bore the "Bonnie Blue Flag" above him,
Held the Stars and Bars unfurling.
Forest, Breckinridge, and Morgan,
Gallant gentlemen and soldiers,
Were his comrades in the struggle,
Were his mighty fellow-suff'rers.
His career through countless hardships,
His successes and his losses,
His adventures without number,
Culminating in the northern prisons,
At Fort Delaware, Columbus,
Morris Island, Fort Pulaski,--
Al
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