A Burning Shame

I certainly do not intend to turn this blog into a review of poems from and/or about the Civil War era, but if I find verses that interest me of that I think are worth sharing, I will post them here.

Today's poem comes from the antique Under Both Flags book that I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago. It is on page 211 and I thought it a bit humorous and amusing. Perhaps "reconciliation" is a theme of these lines too, though in a different format. I don't know if Dixie Wolcott is the suthor or the character in the poem

A BURNING SHAME

Dixie Wolcott

That there wasn't a saucier rebel

In all the sunny South,

'Twas easy to tell by the mischievous eyes

And the smile of her roguish mouth.

But how she hated the Yankees

She couldn't bear the name;

"How dared they come and whip us;

It was a burning shame!"

One of those self-same Yankees

Came to her Dixie one day,

And ere the week was over

She'd stolen his heart away.

But how should she treat her captive?

He couldn't be shot you know,

Because the war was ended

Two dozen years ago.

So in order to keep him prisoner

The rest of his life instead

She reckoned she'd have to marry him, tho'

"'Twas a burin shame," she said.

Feminine Wrath

Today's entry is a  story from Frank Moore's  The Civil War in Song and Story. This is from page 431 of this antique work.

Feminine Wrath

"In the fall of 1863, after the great national successes at Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and Gettysburg, the President of the United States appointed a day if Thanksgiving to God for the victories that had crowned the national arms.

The Bulletin, a Union paper published in Memphis, Tennessee, made a simple announcement of the fact, and remarked that there were many, no doubt, in that city who would heartily join in celebrating the day. This suggestion drew upon the editor's head the following blowing and defiant philippic from the pen of one of the fair citizens of Memphis:

EDITOR BULLETIN: You call attention to Lincoln's appointment of a day of Thanksgiving for the successes which have blessed our cause, and you hope the day will be properly observed. By 'our cause' you mean the Union cause. I wonder how you think the people of Memphis can thank God for the successes of the Union Abolition cause. You pretend to think that a great Union sentiment has sprung up in Memphis, because you say that upwards of eleven thousand persons have taken the oath of allegiance. Let me tell you, if they have taken it, they did not do it of their own free will, and they don't feel bound by it; they had to take it under a military despotism, and don't feel bound to regard any oath forced upon them in that way. Do you believe that any preacher in Memphis will appoint services in his church at Lincoln's dictation? Let one dare to try it and see how his congregation will stand it. They know better. They know full well that the people of Memphis give thanks over Union disasters with sincere hearts, but don't rejoice at Union victories as they call them. The women of Memphis will stick to the Confederate cause, like Ruth clung to her mother-in-law, and say to it 'Where thou goest, I will go, where thou livest I will live, where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried.' But where are your great successes? Your own papers say that Lee brought off a train of captured spoils twelve miles long, and that Morgan destroyed seven or eight millions of dollars' worth before all of Ohio and Indiana could stop him. Pretty dear success, this. Still I won't rejoice over it at Lincoln's dictation. But wait till President Davis' day comes round. Perhaps by that time Meade may get another whipping, and if you don't see rejoicing and thanksgiving then, you may well believe that you and your officious local fail to see half that exists in Memphis. Now you won't publish this, perhaps, because it don't suit you. You can say the reason is, because I don't put my real name to it. You can do as you please about it. I choose to sign it,

Mary Lee Thorne