The Essential Works of Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman
Virginia and Maryland, and most of them known personally
to the General.
Jauntily forward they went with quick step toward Gowanus’ waters,
Till of a sudden unlook’d for by defiles through the woods, gain’d at night,
The British advancing, rounding in from the east, fiercely playing
their guns,
That brigade of the youngest was cut off and at the enemy’s mercy.
The General watch’d them from this hill,
They made repeated desperate attempts to burst their environment,
Then drew close together, very compact, their flag flying in the middle,
But O from the hills how the cannon were thinning and thinning them!
It sickens me yet, that slaughter!
I saw the moisture gather in drops on the face of the General.
I saw how he wrung his hands in anguish.
Meanwhile the British manoeuvr’d to draw us out for a pitch’d battle,
But we dared not trust the chances of a pitch’d battle.
We fought the fight in detachments,
Sallying forth we fought at several points, but in each the luck was
against us,
Our foe advancing, steadily getting the best of it, push’d us back
to the works on this hill,
Till we turn’d menacing here, and then he left us.
That was the going out of the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand
strong,
Few return’d, nearly all remain in Brooklyn.
That and here my General’s first battle,
No women looking on nor sunshine to bask in, it did not conclude
with applause,
Nobody clapp’d hands here then.
But in darkness in mist on the ground under a chill rain,
Wearied that night we lay foil’d and sullen,
While scornfully laugh’d many an arrogant lord off against us encamp’d,
Quite within hearing, feasting, clinking wineglasses together over
their victory.
So dull and damp and another day,
But the night of that, mist lifting, rain ceasing,
Silent as a ghost while they thought they were sure of him, my
General retreated.
I saw him at the river-side,
Down by the ferry lit by torches, hastening the embarcation;
My General waited till the soldiers and wounded were all pass’d over,
And then, (it was just ere sunrise,) these eyes rested on him for
the last time.
Every one else seem’d fill’d with gloom,
Many no doubt thought of capitulation.
But when my General pass’d me,
As he stood in his boat and look’d toward the coming sun,
I saw something different from capitulation.
[Terminus]
Enough, the Centenarian’s story ends,
The two, the past and present, have interchanged,
I myself as connecter, as chansonnier of a great future, am now speaking.
And is this the ground Washington trod?
And these waters I listlessly daily cross, are these the waters he cross’d,
As resolute in defeat as other generals in their proudest triumphs?
I must copy the story, and send it eastward and westward,
I must preserve that look as it beam’d on you rivers of Brooklyn.
See — as the annual round returns the phantoms return,
It is the 27th of August and the British have landed,
The battle begins and goes against us, behold through the smoke
Washington’s face,
The brigade of Virginia and Maryland have march’d forth to intercept
the enemy,
They are cut off, murderous artillery from the hills plays upon them,
Rank after rank falls, while over them silently droops the flag,
Baptized that day in many a young man’s bloody wounds.
In death, defeat, and sisters’, mothers’ tears.
Ah, hills and slopes of Brooklyn! I perceive you are more valuable
than your owners supposed;
In the midst of you stands an encampment very old,
Stands forever the camp of that dead brigade.
Cavalry Crossing a Ford
A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands,
They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun — hark to
the musical clank,
Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop
to drink,
Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the
negligent rest on the saddles,
Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford — while,
Scarlet and blue and snowy white,
The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.
Bivouac on a Mountain Side
I see before me now a traveling army halting,
Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer,
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising high,
Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily seen,
The numerous camp-fires scatter’d near and far, some away up on the
mountain,
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering,
And over all the sky — the sky! far, far out of reach, studded,
breaking out, the eternal stars.
An Army Corps on the March
With its cloud of skirmishers in advance,
With now the sound of a single shot snapping like a whip, and now an
irregular volley,
The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on,
Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun — the dust-cover’d men,
In columns rise