The Sentries Poem by John Yaws

"You aren't sleepin', are you Johnny"?
Came a voice across the stream.
"No more than you are, Billy Yank! "
Awaking from his dream.
He had dreamed he was in Georgia
In the balmy summer time-
Peaches drooping from their branches-
He could smell the fragrant pines.
"Where do you hail from, Billy? "
Called the quiet Southern drawl-
Which fell as strange on Vermont ears-
As a Rebel saying, "Yall".
"Vermont, " the youngster told him-
" You know what I desire?
That this war would end by autumn-
An' we'd all get out of hyar!
I'd like to see the mountains-
When the colors start to turn-
To reds, and golds, and yellers
It looks like the mountains burn! "
"I hear yuh talkin', Billy Yank!
I sure am sick fer home,
To see a plow share turnin'
The rich, red Georgia loam.
I'd like to see my Mary Anne-
She promised she would wait,
Till I returned home from the war-
Then we would set a date."
"Where are we? Have ye heard 'em say?
I'd really like to know."
There's a church just up the road a piece-
That someone called "Shiloh".
"Why that means "peace", the preacher said,
Maybe it's an omen! "
But neither lad had an idea-
Just what with dawn was comin'!
The day broke clear and cloudless-
With the rising of the sun-
The silence soon was shattered-
By the awful roar of guns-
In a stream which flows to "Bloody Pond"
As the sun sank in the west-
They found two boys with bayonets-
Thrust in each others breasts-
Side by side beneath the sod-
Two youthful warriors lay-
The one was dressed in Yankee blue
The other Rebel grey.