A Far Tattoo Poem by Frederick Eugene Van Kirk

"Tattoo"
Was the signal for the men to prepare to rest for the night:

"Taps' Lyric's"
Fading light dims the sight,
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright.
From afar drawing nigh -Falls the night.

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

Then good night, peaceful night,
Till the light of the dawn shineth bright;
God is near, do not fear -Friend, good night.


A wispy Picket, gun silent now, stood railing at his post.
Quiet, hushed the Corporal, you're like to raise a ghost.
Aye, cried the wraith, there's many here by my side:
They fill the fields about, where nigh ten thousand died.

Now Corporal, O' Corporal, let them pipe a last Tattoo,
For our boys are shot to tatters, and lay dying in the dew:
Yes, prepare their souls to rest; let them pipe a last Tattoo.

O' the drumming call to battle yet echoes to my ear:
Our boys they were all valiant, and the enemy knew no fear.
Their cannons glowed white-hot; yet we marched ahead:
How could the sky be so blue while all beneath turn's red?

All day we fought; how long I thought; it must be evening soon,
But still the cannons threshed, and the sun seemed fixed at noon.
It seemed I walked in sand, for I was weary through and through;
I dreamed the day was over and heard them softly pipe Tattoo.

I heard its lilt coming closer, ‘til it lowed just over the rise,
And it seemed as I listened that the scales fell from my eyes:
I visaged mothers weeping o'er bleeding heaps of gray and blue,
And I wept as it bled into me, the sound of that far Tattoo.

Rings yet the rat-tat-tat of the drums and the fifes are calling still.
Ten thousand more will join us today; see them marching up the hill.
Their silent eyes are dull and glazed and their war cries are but few,
For their hearts are all turned homeward, for all hear that far Tattoo.

And long these fields will be our graves, and hogs will root our bones;
Birds will peck our rotting flesh, and our rags will dress their homes.
‘Till at last whelmed with shame the victors consecrate blue and grey.
Now the men can rest; 0' sweet rest, and Taps like a fading ember brings to a close to their weary day.

F.E. Van Kirk





"
Randolph Harrison McKim,1st Lieutenant, Army of Northern Virginia, CSA.
"Believing as we did that the war was a war of subjugation, and that it meant, if successful, the
destruction of our liberties, the issue in our minds was clearly drawn as I have stated it, - The Union without Liberty, or Liberty without the Union. And if we are reminded that the success of the Federal armies did not involve, in fact, the destruction of liberty, I answer by traversing that statement, and pointing out that during all the long and bitter period of "Reconstruction, " the liberties of the Southern States were completely suppressed. Representative government existed only in name. In the end, by the blessing of God, the spirit of the martyred Lincoln prevailed over the spirit of despotism as incarnated in Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, and after long eclipse the sun of liberty and self-government again shone south of Mason and Dixon's line."


Charles Dickens:
"So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils. The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel."











"Tattoo"
Was the signal for the men to prepare to rest for the night:

"Taps' Lyric's"
Fading light dims the sight,
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright.
From afar drawing nigh -Falls the night.

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

Then good night, peaceful night,
Till the light of the dawn shineth bright;
God is near, do not fear -Friend, good night.

A Far Tattoo
A wispy Picket, gun silent now, stood railing at his post.
Quiet, hushed the Corporal, you're like to raise a ghost.
Aye, cried the wraith, there's many here by my side:
They fill the fields about, where nigh ten thousand died.

Now Corporal, O' Corporal, let them pipe a last Tattoo,
For our boys are shot to tatters, and lay dying in the dew:
Yes, prepare their souls to rest; let them pipe a last Tattoo.

O' the drumming call to battle yet echoes to my ear:
Our boys they were all valiant, and the enemy knew no fear.
Their cannons glowed white-hot; yet we marched ahead:
How could the sky be so blue while all beneath turn's red?

All day we fought; how long I thought; it must be evening soon,
But still the cannons threshed, and the sun seemed fixed at noon.
It seemed I walked in sand, for I was weary through and through;
I dreamed the day was over and heard them softly pipe Tattoo.

I heard its lilt coming closer, ‘til it lowed just over the rise,
And it seemed as I listened that the scales fell from my eyes:
I visaged mothers weeping o'er bleeding heaps of gray and blue,
And I wept as it bled into me, the sound of that far Tattoo.

Rings yet the rat-tat-tat of the drums and the fifes are calling still.
Ten thousand more will join us today; see them marching up the hill.
Their silent eyes are dull and glazed and their war cries are but few,
For their hearts are all turned homeward, for all hear that far Tattoo.

And long these fields will be our graves, and hogs will root our bones;
Birds will peck our rotting flesh, and our rags will dress their homes.
‘Till at last whelmed with shame the victors consecrate blue and grey.
Now the men can rest; 0' sweet rest, and Taps like a fading ember brings to a close to their weary day.

F.E. Van Kirk





"
Randolph Harrison McKim,1st Lieutenant, Army of Northern Virginia, CSA.
"Believing as we did that the war was a war of subjugation, and that it meant, if successful, the
destruction of our liberties, the issue in our minds was clearly drawn as I have stated it, - The Union without Liberty, or Liberty without the Union. And if we are reminded that the success of the Federal armies did not involve, in fact, the destruction of liberty, I answer by traversing that statement, and pointing out that during all the long and bitter period of "Reconstruction, " the liberties of the Southern States were completely suppressed. Representative government existed only in name. In the end, by the blessing of God, the spirit of the martyred Lincoln prevailed over the spirit of despotism as incarnated in Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, and after long eclipse the sun of liberty and self-government again shone south of Mason and Dixon's line."


Charles Dickens:
"So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils. The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel."










Tattoo"
Was the signal for the men to prepare to rest for the night:

"Taps' Lyric's"
Fading light dims the sight,
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright.
From afar drawing nigh -Falls the night.

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

Then good night, peaceful night,
Till the light of the dawn shineth bright;
God is near, do not fear -Friend, good night.

A Far Tattoo
A wispy Picket, gun silent now, stood railing at his post.
Quiet, hushed the Corporal, you're like to raise a ghost.
Aye, cried the wraith, there's many here by my side:
They fill the fields about, where nigh ten thousand died.

Now Corporal, O' Corporal, let them pipe a last Tattoo,
For our boys are shot to tatters, and lay dying in the dew:
Yes, prepare their souls to rest; let them pipe a last Tattoo.

O' the drumming call to battle yet echoes to my ear:
Our boys they were all valiant, and the enemy knew no fear.
Their cannons glowed white-hot; yet we marched ahead:
How could the sky be so blue while all beneath turn's red?

All day we fought; how long I thought; it must be evening soon,
But still the cannons threshed, and the sun seemed fixed at noon.
It seemed I walked in sand, for I was weary through and through;
I dreamed the day was over and heard them softly pipe Tattoo.

I heard its lilt coming closer, ‘til it lowed just over the rise,
And it seemed as I listened that the scales fell from my eyes:
I visaged mothers weeping o'er bleeding heaps of gray and blue,
And I wept as it bled into me, the sound of that far Tattoo.

Rings yet the rat-tat-tat of the drums and the fifes are calling still.
Ten thousand more will join us today; see them marching up the hill.
Their silent eyes are dull and glazed and their war cries are but few,
For their hearts are all turned homeward, for all hear that far Tattoo.

And long these fields will be our graves, and hogs will root our bones;
Birds will peck our rotting flesh, and our rags will dress their homes.
‘Till at last whelmed with shame the victors consecrate blue and grey.
Now the men can rest; 0' sweet rest, and Taps like a fading ember brings to a close to their weary day.

F.E. Van Kirk





"
Randolph Harrison McKim,1st Lieutenant, Army of Northern Virginia, CSA.
"Believing as we did that the war was a war of subjugation, and that it meant, if successful, the
destruction of our liberties, the issue in our minds was clearly drawn as I have stated it, - The Union without Liberty, or Liberty without the Union. And if we are reminded that the success of the Federal armies did not involve, in fact, the destruction of liberty, I answer by traversing that statement, and pointing out that during all the long and bitter period of "Reconstruction, " the liberties of the Southern States were completely suppressed. Representative government existed only in name. In the end, by the blessing of God, the spirit of the martyred Lincoln prevailed over the spirit of despotism as incarnated in Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, and after long eclipse the sun of liberty and self-government again shone south of Mason and Dixon's line."