The Irish Soldier
An epic poem
Introduction
The Don Troiani painting of the Irish Brigade’s charge during the Battle of Fredericksburg has hung in my parent’s living room since as long as I can remember. Truth be told, yours truly was born in Fredericksburg — as well as my older brother and sister — but I have no memory of the city, since the Fowler clan moved north to Connecticut when I was an infant.
This poem once started as an homage to Irish ballads, but I felt it warranted a more extensive project. But why write an epic poem? It’s a dead art, for sure; yet, the form is at the root of how our civilization has shared values and memories — plus, I was searching for an artistic challenge. And now I can say the bucket list item can be checked, even if it’s doomed to the vortex of the Internet. Regardless, my goal was to highlight the brave men who fought at Fredericksburg because I hadn’t seen their story told before.
I hope it’s any good, and that it encourages you — dear reader — to not only create the art you wish (because, Lord knows, this was challenging indeed), but to learn more about the Civil War. So, without further ado…
PREAMBLE
You! Hear this song concerning our orphaned countrymen of yore,
who fled Eire’s famished shores and the Absentee law’s wrathful sword —
to be thrusted into a New World conflict, echoing Cain and Abel’s mighty rift,
enduring the breath of Hell that scythed shredded souls oft too swift.
For home! For freedom they sought to obtain — or escape from the workers’ wage;
though they ne’er retreated from the clash of spears, even till the end of their age.
For as sheets of flame ripped the Advent air, one could hear the doomed assault say:
‘Faugh a ballagh’ — clear the way!
BALLAD I
Niall O’Connell’s boots were worn from the muddy miles marched,
through Virginian countryside, both gray and parched,
drained of color by the crisp wintery wind creeping into November —
yet he trudged on, step-by-step, hoping they would last till December.
Ripped off a fallen stranger, the boots strangled his blistered, swollen feet,
which, upon removal, resembled more like tenderized meat.
He had obeyed the Commandments, even the Eighth,
which lingered since his younger days, when he was catechized in the Faith.
But in Sharpsburg’s once vibrant fields, now drenched in ooze and blood,
survival bellowed in his ear, like Noah’s vision before the Flood.
‘Take,’ a voice commanded, ‘You will need them for the journey ahead.
Did not I say, let the dead bury the dead?’
The numerous dead did not speak, but the corpse’s marble eyes cried to heaven —
perhaps pleading for his mother or for his soul’s ascension.
But there he lay, bound like the tens of thousands for the grave,
a man Niall — nor any of his comrades — could no longer save.
Niall figured the fallen man would have even gifted the boots to him,
‘After all,’ he wondered, ‘they may not have been his to begin with.’
But pillaging still irked the turmoil he tried to drown within,
as if the man were a mirror, and Niall would soon become his next of kin.
The cannon smoke lingered, curling long after that battle ceased,
wafting the stench of metal and excrement, ne’er giving Niall a moments’ peace.
The smells clung to his nostrils, even months from when the waves of men clashed;
‘How did I ever live?’ he, of himself, often asked.
‘Miles away?’ a voice thundered, breaking the soldier’s concentration.
Niall’s spirit leapt, at once arching his back as if to stand at attention.
‘At ease, Dingle — making sure you’re still with us.
Don’t worry, looks like you have your health and guts.’
Patrick was a comrade of Niall’s since their time in New York,
when both served in a factory, applying muscle and torque.
His skin was scorched, stretched ‘cross his thin build, yet tall he stood,
and his foes often failed to grasp the man’s secret strength, for his appearance was misunderstood.
He reminded Niall of the O’Connell ox before the famine came —
intimidating any stranger, and lived like it carried the family name.
A fighter, Niall saw in Patrick, imbued with a fiery spirit,
that he — once a humble shepherd boy with straw behind the ear — longed to covet.
Niall hailed from Baile an Chótaigh, a village dangling on Dingle,
a verdant hillside land where few souls would sit and mingle.
From youth, his father tasked him to protect the family sheep from prey,
of which he faithfully performed, alone, until famine took them away.
The day the harvest rotted, the white caps cracked ancient rocks lining the shore,
while the sky blackened, twisting into a color he ne’er seen before.
From fear of a storm, he herded the sheep home to their wooden pen,
Twas then he saw his father’s anguished face, one he hoped not to witness again.
But that was not to be — the anguish infected the fabric of the family.
One by one, his siblings and parents’ hunger grumbled angrily,
and their ire turned toward the landlord, who from afar bathed in indifference —
whose silence to their plight rang with the evil of belligerence.
The sheep were sold or sacrificed to sustain them for a time,
though the boy witnessed one-after-one villagers evaporate before their prime.
And what of the ox’s fate — did it withstand the turmoil?
Niall choked his recall, burying the memory like a loved one yet ‘neath cursed soil.
But he could not forget the night his mother drifted into eternity,
imparting her wisdom through gasped breaths and chance at maternity.
‘See the sky outside thar window dancing blue, purple, and green?
If yee ever see them again, know that you are heard and seen.’
Then she left him — commending her spirit to the Maker.
The dancing lights dissipated, scattering from blanketing the sapped acres.
Hollowed, he left the hallowed ground generations spent their toil and more,
by miracle crossing the Atlantic, to build a new life on America’s shores.
‘Dingle! What’s gone on in yer head?
You move like one grieving for the dead.
We are about to make camp, at least so our commanders say,
so retrieve your spirit from Hades, and stay in step for a little ways.’
The regiment drummed, canteens clanged, like a train through the wood,
ricocheting off the aged barks and quaking the deep roots;
twas then a rabbit, young and spry, caught Niall’s belabored eyes —
scurrying into the brush, perhaps to its sanctuary nearby.
‘What comforts,’ he wondered, ‘may the creature find buried in its home —
undisturbed dirt, not stained by blood, skulls or bones.’
A sudden searing ache pierced his soles like a thousand bayonets,
but, thus far, he had escaped the metal tearing through his chest.
‘My mind was on home,’ tumbled forth like feathers drifting on the wind,
‘back to Ireland and my folks, but t’all feels ancient then.
Do you dream of the verdant hills and the sweet smell of the seas?
Or does the reminiscing of our former land only belong to me?’
No bark, nor sigh, nor melancholy poured from Patrick’s crusted lips;
his vision fixed forward, though rolling his arms, he adjusted his firm grip
on the rifle that his shoulder bore like a cross or appendage —
whilst keeping rhythm with those ahead, on whom his life and limb depended.
‘That land no longer exists Dingle, nor will it ever be once again,
for the English masters outlawed it — yet here, a new life can begin.
Washington, Jefferson, Franklin recognized their flaw, and fought for liberty,
so men could strive for glory, regardless of the land where they first breathed.’
He shed not another word, for what more could be said —
and Niall refused to prod further, resigning to soldier on instead.
Suddenly then the troop halted, the clamoring chug dying within the trees,
‘Look over yonder,’ one comrade yipped, ‘Fredericksburg, that’d be.’
The city, honored for a king’s son, quietly rested between hills and the Rappahannock,
one of which, since Fort Sumter, avoided the uncivil clash and havoc.
‘Tis be where Washington formed as a young man,’ another voice hollered,
‘Fortune be with us, and right there he tossed the mythic silver dollar.’
Yet the air stood silent from the city — not a bustling peep was detected,
while the rushing river flowed onward, undisturbed and unaffected.
A creeping realization rippled through the ranks, peering from the river’s bank —
‘Where are the bridges?’ Nothing was left: not a board or plank.
Only solitary studs arose from the water like masts of a sunken ship,
camouflaged by the city’s homes, stores and the steeples of the houses of worship;
but Niall felt the men’s sinking spirits, who tiredly moaned and cursed,
from the disconnection to civilization, while others believed it foreshadowed something worse.
‘Who yelled out fortune before,’ a young man cried, ‘when it’s come to this.
Now, we’re trapped in Rebel country for winter, and shall succumb to the abyss.’
‘Enough!’ shouted the Captain, who circled around the men on his steed,
‘We shall stop here and make camp — wait for orders, we will make do, indeed.’
Within moments, Niall, Patrick, and the men laid down their weapons and pitched dog tents,
moving as experienced, hardened machines — for not a minute was idly spent.
‘Like the days when we met,’ Niall quipped to his friend, ‘how things stay the same,’
while Patrick cracked the frosted soil with a tent pole, silently laying claim.
A new village sprang, sprawling ‘cross the earth, as blue coats hunkered down,
to warm their hands, brew coffee, over fires dotting the campground.
Smoke arose, sans the metallic taste, along with chatter and music,
while others munched on hardtack — that by desperation no longer made one sick.
Niall collected his rifle, canteen, and pack, placing them ‘neath a makeshift cot,
as Patrick quickly slipped into a sleep that bears neither dream nor thought.
‘Best let him rest,’ Niall mused, ‘the day is swiftly approaching its eve,
‘tis the time one can lay down his duty and envision being relieved.’
Wanderlust clouds of red and purple swung over the city and earth,
whipping like the soothing flames once enjoyed in the O’Connell hearth;
They once beckoned beauty and peace — a fervor for a welcomed guest at the door,
yet Niall winced, lowering his eyes from the colors now corrupted by war.
Though he marched all day, his feet led him wandering an aimless pace,
passed tired warriors, whose eyes sunk into each hardened, graveled face.
Murmurs swirled of Washington’s failure for not reconstructing a bridge,
while a Boy drafted letters, pleading for loved ones to take courage.
As the Boy finished, the pen trembled in his calloused hands caked in soot,
and, upon feeling Niall’s gaze, forlornly glanced at the elder with a haunted look.
Tenderly, the Boy folded the letter containing the final words he may exchange,
comforting a loved one — an echo from a soldier’s grave.
Niall withheld tears while walking on, for sympathy swirled within his soul,
but he had no letters to craft, for there was no one left for him to console.
Hark! Then a fiddler’s rosined bow glided ‘cross worn down strings,
calling all the soldiers, who herded ‘round to hear their countryman sing:
‘You true sons of Erin, awake from your slumbers,
let the long silent harp vibrate its loud numbers.
Though firmly bound by the conqueror’s chain,
make one bold dash for your freedom again.’
Niall stood near the circle listening to the tune that enraptured every ear,
for t’was a sweeter sound, wiping away the battle cries from yesteryear.
Thus the spirited men became inebriated by the song’s joyous chorus,
producing a melody conducted not by the bow, but a force more glorious.
‘To sing well is to pray twice,’ remarked the Chaplain who stood next to Niall,
‘and they act like absolved souls bound for glory — rather than a pyre’s pile.’
The soldier nervously swayed, while the priest stroked his untamed beard and chin;
Niall’s feet burned in the constricting boots, unsure if taking them could be deemed a sin.
‘Father,’ he tentatively began, but his voice trailed off like smoke in air;
mentally babbling for consolation and affirmation, yet he spoke no firm prayer.
‘Are you distressed, lad,’ the Chaplain inquired, noting the soldier’s perspiration,
‘There be nothing to fear if you desire a forthcoming conversation.’
A swelling cheer erupted from the men as the fiddler struck a chord,
regaling the tale of Tim McDonald, a volunteer who had been long adored,
for he fought and charged the enemy til he died ‘neath the standard,
and now dwells in the pantheon, where only the righteous and brave enter.
The ground loosened ‘neath Niall’s feet, for though many battles he saw,
his mettle never hardened as he had hoped, tumbling like unmoored straw.
‘Do you believe we can achieve victory,’ he quietly asked the priest,
while starting to slink off into the night, like a man bent on retreat.
‘The Victory is won, and this be only life’s preamble,’ the Chaplain retorted,
‘We cannot avert the Lord’s judgment, and His Will can ne’er be thwarted;
so take heed my lad — fight for His freedom, confident in His power;
for men will see and hear, as they do not sing songs about cowards.’
The Chaplain confidently stroked his beard, humming along to the tune,
while Niall slipped away, more disturbed than he had been in the afternoon.
Bashing, crashing waves tore his spirit like the day famine plagued the village,
while he batted away the hardened, vacant faces of every soul Death pillaged.
Winter’s early darkness consumed the banks of Fredericksburg,
where Niall found himself far and away from McDonald’s heroic dirge.
He rummaged in search of a stone to hurl ‘cross the river like Washington,
but his aim and strength plopped well short — the Hero would not be outdone.
Dejected, anguished yet Niall could not ignore the city’s lanterns dim;
No star danced in the night sky, and the air weighed rather grim.
The fiddler’s jovial music t’was killed by a faint pounding drum,
that plodded from the heights beyond — to which every sound succumbed.
The force crept like a mountain breaching from the earth,
yet Niall alone, which shocked him most, listened t’where the pounding made berth.
His spine rattled and skin shriveled, pierced by the wintry wind,
for a terror struck, its whisper petrifying him: ‘This be where your end begins.’
BALLAD II
Rebels. Entrenched on Marye’s Heights.
One by one, the city’s residents have been taking flight,
lugging children, heirlooms lest they’d be destroyed by Wrath’s aura —
when the Almighty rained sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah.
The old men, who’s fight was too weak and feeble, mustered for martyrdom,
to withstand the cannon for country like their sons and their sons.
Yet the old women, with worn and tired faces, pled for rationality,
to preserve life and memory — like clutching loose fabrics of the familial tapestry.
Not a shot had been fired; but panic struck nonetheless,
and the refugees, without a Prophet, toiled through the havoc and mess.
From Niall’s view, they ‘peared like ants, fleeing from a city damned,
‘Where can you escape,’ he wondered, ‘for there is no Holy Land.’
Nearly a month had passed since the Union arrived on Fredericksburg’s banks;
while tense anticipation encompassed the fretful men from every flank.
‘Will we live to see Christmas, and celebrate the Babe of Bethlehem,’
Niall once heard, ‘or be cast into the bloody chasm by our brethren?’
Drilling. Soldiering. Still, Niall could not shake his distress,
whilst seeing his ghostly men floating ‘round the camp spiritless.
‘When will the day come,’ he asked Patrick, who darned his socks one, foggy eve,
‘rather the inevitable come — for the clash to pass and be relieved.’
‘Don’t be naive,’ his undisturbed comrade stated, ‘enjoy this peace,
we have been here before, and why wish for Death’s release?’
Niall shrugged, knowing Patrick spoke a soldier’s truth,
but the anguish burned, charring his soul that longed to be soothed.
Suddenly, a rolling caravan jostled forth from the fog through the camp,
pulled by hundreds of mules, that pounded the earth with each sturdy stamp.
Niall rushed toward the Engineers, tasked to assemble the pontoons,
and forge a bridge for the Union to ‘cross the Rappahannock soon.
‘Soon — how soon?’ Niall pondered, bracing against the oncoming train,
as its biting tailwinds ushered the beginnings of a mighty campaign;
The Engineers trekked down to the river that, at once, roared and turned,
while Niall and others discerned when they’d cross, and if they’d return.
‘Alright men, let them perform their duty,’ the Captain cried,
‘You’ll get your chance at the Rebel and, for their beliefs, make them die!’
An energy zapped the men, now amping themselves to fight,
while the pontoniers labored, straining their bones throughout the cold night.
Commotion blanketed the soldiers cleaning their rifles, filling their canteens,
preparing for the order to be giv’n, which birthed a chaotic scene.
Niall ran to his tent, telling the news to Patrick — who still darned,
‘I expect us to move out, Dingle,’ he said, ‘well before the new dawn.’
His comrade’s cold reserve shone in the campfire blazing nearby,
as he studied the repair patch that did not match the sock’s original dye.
But he slipped his foot within, wiggling his toes for warmth,
‘Good as new,’ he quietly spoke, ‘hopefully it’ll be so henceforth.’
Niall, meanwhile, tried to rest, but the blood surged through his limbs;
he hearkened to when his mother sang both Irish rhymes and hymns,
but her vision sang no tales, and no fiddler’s bow breached the mind,
so there he lay — counting the minutes to pass the time.
And time passed — for a mist choked the river in a disguising dank, dingy murk
yet it failed to conceal the construction of the pontoniers’ vital work.
A burst of flame flashed from a brick house along a gentle slope beyond,
Bam! Splash! Down crashed a man into the tidal flow, bloody and marred.
Voices rang out! Wailing, gnashing rifled like lightning in the early morn,
‘Arise, men!’ the Captain shouted, ‘Rebel fighters fire at us with scorn.’
Niall sprang off his cot, jolted — slinging the gun on his shoulder,
whilst the campfire’s blaze shone off his eyes, as if they smoldered.
An animalistic daze consumed him, for he had little to no rest,
as the blasts spewed at will like hornets from their hidden nest.
‘Tis here — the die has now been cast,’ Niall exclaimed,
‘When Fredericksburg’s fate will forever be praised or hereafter stained.’
‘To arms! To arms!’ The rank and file dashed, forming into regiments,
‘make haste t’ward the bridge and crush the Confederates!’
To Niall’s left was Patrick, to his right, the Boy,
and their thundery march churned the dirt amongst the Union convoy.
Bursts of flame shattered flesh, bones, and limbs from the pontoniers,
while others ignored the whizzing bullets ripping the air by their ears.
But the pontoons were incomplete, the sharpshooters denied that way to cross —
another route had to be taken to avoid a disastrous, heavy loss.
‘Fire the cannons!’ the order rang, ‘to snuff ‘em out, scare the Rebels away,
so our boys can pile in boats, run the gauntlet and laugh at the fray.’
Crash! Homes exploded, aflamed debris settled — a steeple slammed on the street;
yips whooped and curdled hollering rang, yet their return fire ne’er ceased.
Thus the artillery rained with the might of a wrathful, vengeful god,
and a thundering, blustering pounding bombarded for shock and awe.
Niall stood on the shore, consuming the fury of the battle’s salvo,
silently awaiting to perform his duty in the red dawn’s blackened shadows.
A few yards away, a man hawked violently, his lungs irritated from the ash;
Snap! His head cracked open and teeth obliterated by a Rebel’s avenging lash.
While others ducked, Niall wiped his eyes for now he could see blood,
and looking down, to his dismay, discovered shards of skull and hair in the mud.
Like a noose, the boots twistedly wrung his feet burning with every step,
yet he focused forward — not on the mayhem, which he had to quickly forget.
Men filled the boats, cramming into every crook and splinter,
reminding him of the oceanic voyage harshly traversed one winter.
‘Be winter now, though I’ve aged,’ he mused whilst settling on a board,
‘Eire’s song still cries within — that struggle between poor and lords.’
Niall t’was given port’s crude oar, as no artistry went into its making,
‘Heave ho across the riv’r lads,’ one yelled, ‘and begin this undertaking.’
As one unit, the men rowed — straining every muscle, bruising their hands,
charging forward toward the opposite shore, now cratered, reduced to sand.
The boat battled and bobbed against the tide’s fury,
while they weaved to escape the vulnerability with an ignited hurry.
Snap! Bam! Splash! The murky river devoured men in a gluttonous feast,
as sharpshooters picked off blue coats like pitiful prey leashed.
Yet the armada beat the crashing waves withstanding e’vry attack,
and Niall’s mind firmly shuttered — for all he could do was act.
Next he knew, the boat rammed the bank awakening Niall to leap out,
among others who tumbled like knights knocked into forced dismounts.
A tug yanked Niall upright and dragged him t’ward the first building he could see,
as a bullet struck the empty sodden ground that could’ve marked eternity.
Bracing against the scarred brick, he realized Patrick t’was his guardian angel,
whose darkened eyes shrouded any fear, evoking one calm and stable.
No words passed as Patrick rounded the corner firing at a window —
a Rebel gasped, slumping on the sill: in a flash his wife became a widow.
The Rebel swayed, draped like clothes on a line, blown by cannon quakes,
and Niall watched his black blood dripping down as in rhythm with no break.
‘Dingle! Time to move — tis not safe to stand here,’ Patrick stressed,
‘but beware of every door and corner as we continue to progress.’
Niall followed his tall, stout comrade from home to home down the chaotic road,
now torn by panic flight and shattered facades, crying as it cradled a heavy load.
Rifle at the ready, he braced to meet the enemy ‘round e’vry darkened bend,
with his finger flinching o’er the trigger, suspending the ability to comprehend.
The shells ceased screeching as Federals repelled the Rebels alley by alley,
and took none alive to break the spirits of those retreating from the city to rally.
But the disturbances did not quiet as Niall poked into a brooding corridor,
for the whooping and hollering barreled through e’vry window and e’vry door.
A metallic, bowel stench whisked from the beyond of which Niall did not see or know,
from a street over, perhaps; while ash from burning trees fell like hardened snow.
Yet an unblemished barrel placed next to an alley door eerily called him forth,
and suddenly he realized his comrade’s absence — trekking onward without support.
The barrel breathed as his burning feet squished into the muddy track,
as he was drawn f’ward, aiming his bayonet to commit a savage act.
Within his belly, swirled and stewed a volcanic wave he could no longer contain,
thus he thrusted at the barrel and force sheltering behind it, screaming the profane.
Alas! The bayonet tip wavered at a Black man’s neck whose caged eyes winced from fear,
who quietly, repeatedly muttered the same prayer lest anyone else could hear.
‘Please sur,’ the soiled man mustered, restraining from flinching with surrendered hands,
‘dunt kill me mistah — I will do as you command.’
All color drained from Niall who lowered his heavy weapon,
and noticing the Black crippled, tossed the rifle from his possession.
A reddened pool warmed the cold, wintry ground beside a Rebel home,
from his lower limbs cut and torn apart, revealing fat beneath and bone.
The man would die — that much Niall knew as his stomach dropped to his feet;
He bequeathed his coat, knelt next to him to where their eyes could meet.
‘Yur not frum here,’ the Black man asked, to which Niall shamefully shook his head,
‘From Ireland I came,’ he tearfully replied, ‘sought a haven from its toil and bloodshed.’
A biting wind stampeded o’er them in the brooding alleyway,
carrying the raucous fervor from soldiers sacking the city once belonging to the Greys.
The Black man’s color evaporated with his limbs drooped onto the swooping zephyr.
‘Do I die a free man?’ he lightly breathed, relinquishing his last forever.
Free — a cry bred into e’vry generation from ‘cross the sea,
a cross carried by St. Patrick’s disciples despite the liberation achieved at Calvary;
‘To this stranger too, it mattered, but coerced he surely had been,
and here he lays dead,’ Niall pondered sorrowfully, ‘now in freedom with his kin.’
The blistering wind ceased whipping his eroding features while he arose,
leaving his coat on the stranger, who, in death, was clothed in a soldier’s robe;
He rearmed and wiped the mud from the butt of his rifle,
alert once more to duty, breathing the air that choked and stifled.
Amidst collecting his wits, the biting chill and raucous clamor returned,
so he entered the adjacent building to survey the battle of which he survived and heard.
Not a creak ‘cept his own rippled on the abandoned home floors and steps,
as he steadily crept t’ward a window, observing the men pillage in streets torn and unswept.
Unmoored. Untamed, they crashed upon the conquered city — some with hands full,
while others tossed stones or greased their throats, breathing akin to aroused bulls.
Though Rebel land, Niall viewed the spectacle with a churned, nauseous spirit,
‘Tis not Troy or ancient,’ he thought, ‘yet the mob drums anew without dignity or merit.’
Alas, he could not stay — duty called him to rejoin his ranks to not be marked ‘missing,’
to avoid being derided as a deserter or incur other ridicule and relentless shaming.
That legacy he dared not be written by the strokes of history,
and repeated in the timeless annals of Life’s greatest mystery.
Back to the upper hall, he noticed a patriarch’s portrait who stood firm and tall,
with cold eyes, whose stare was wide yet guarded, and a tightly clamped jaw;
His clothes were of a merchant’s, fine quality for certain, though it masked a past,
for the lines of his rugged face affirmed a toil from his time in a lower caste.
The jaw twitched to bark at Niall’s intrusion, casting him forth from which he earned,
awakening the other eyes of family portraits that pierced the soldier with mighty concern.
Yet for all the glittery items and ornate furnishings, a wealth his mind could not conceive,
Niall lingered on his impoverished father: ‘This, he was not permitted to achieve.’
‘Best to leave them be,’ Niall reflected, walking away, ‘and to have no curse levied upon me.’
Slam! A door burst open! A yell leapt and crashed on the soldier’s back ferociously,
and a rusted knife lodged in the floorboard splitting the wood’s grain,
while Niall’s head smacked the wall, throbbing with immense pain.
Niall’s eyes clouded, as did his judgment, animalistically searching for protection,
but the rifle was thrown beyond his reach, as the fear overwhelmed the senses.
A wiry Grey, more skull than flesh, aimed to retry a deathly blow,
and jammed down like an avalanche covering the land in suffocating snow.
But Niall refocused in time to grasp his killer’s weathered wrist,
bracing against the brute force, whose present mission would only persist;
The Grey’s pupils shrank, while his eyes rolled over revealing reddened veins,
and the soldier resisted with his struggled strain, not wanting his life to be in vain.
With a surge of will, Niall thrusted the Grey back against the opposite wall,
and squirmed to retrieve the gun, while the enemy brandished his knife and wrawled.
‘This be our home Yank,’ the Grey thundered, once again plunging toward his kill,
but Niall unloaded the rifle with lightning’s fury, and the Grey’s blood began to spill.
The wave shook Niall, who still laid on the floor, aiming the bayonet upward;
a puff of blackened smoke masked the Grey’s last moments as he tumbled forward.
Down the stairwell he bounced, cracking every bone in his lifeless body,
smearing the landing in ooze, appearing like a trophy creature whose mane was shoddy.
Motionless.
Noiseless.
Not a creak he made.
Time stood still — like all days passed away.
Niall’s finger twitched off the trigger, and he noticed the outside clamor died;
meanwhile, the floor drank the blood, so much so it looked as though it dried.
Every thought pushed against him like water to a dam,
which he no longer could resist — ‘That’s it. I am damned.’
A wall was now painted with the blood of the Grey,
and Niall noticed a speck in the cold eye of the patriarch aways;
‘Look what you have done to my home,’ said an exasperated voice,
to which Niall wished he cried, ‘But the man left me no other choice.’
Suddenly, a door flung open at the bottom of the stairs —
Niall turned his rifle rapidly, slinking into a corner like a scared hare.
The obstructed force stooped at the body, to examine the Grey’s face,
as it readied its gun up the steps calling out, ‘Anyone alive in this place?’
‘Who goes there,’ Niall exclaimed with shot senses, ‘be Death or other being,
take one step closer and wrath will strike — so start your fleeing!’
The force ceased midway up the stairs, and with open hands extended,
‘Dingle’ the force responded worriedly, ‘it be Patrick, your friend.’
The tone hit the soldier harder than the artillery fire,
sinking his spirit deeper into the murky muck and mire.
Niall used the rifle to prop himself up onto his feeble feet,
and marched forward to Patrick but refused their eyes to meet.
Moments or longer passed between until Niall dejectedly breathed, ‘Is it over?’
as if every word were unceremoniously plucked like leaves off a clover.
A gloom shrouded his friend’s demeanor, who debated to hide the truth, yet chose to say:
‘No Dingle — but you live to fight for freedom another day.’
Niall hesitated at first, but soon descended, swaying on the steps as if on the open ocean,
like days of yore during the cross: with the same sinking abandonment of his Devotions;
As he broached the threshold, into the mobbed street, he gazed skyward in starless sea,
‘Mother. Father. Can God forgive me — or be I lost forever and this be a fool’s plea?’
A few paces more, passed broken window shards and debris in the eerily windless city,
a pair of soot covered eyes pierced Niall, wounding him with remorseful pity.
T’was the Boy who swung his leg like a broken fence hinge, not joining the fervor,
and bore a face that wished to ask, ‘’Cuse me sir, but how much further —’
The Boy’s sparkless vision locked onto Niall the further the latter trekked,
till the dejected soldier turned a darkened corner, to find a place of rest.
Guilt consumed him while looking back, shrinking his innards in recoil,
while the burning returned to his feet, which would not be soothed on the frosted soil.
BALLAD III
Victory! — elusive as the Rebels reconstituted their lines,
sheltering behind the stone walls and sunken road on the hillside,
for now the Greys aimed their sights ‘cross a sloped, empty field,
tightly wound to fire their blustering guns and shatter Federal shields.
Meanwhile, the rabble’s destructive euphoria subsided as the night lingered,
as their besieged hearts failed to stoke enough warmth for their numbing fingers.
No songs were sung — the fiddler’s bow was silenced by a sniper’s blow,
while the cold, heavy December air indicated a bout with a flurry of snow.
Though wrapped in a blanket, Niall shivered by a fire — for he no longer had a coat,
and no bottle was available to him to grease his strained veins and throbbing throat.
He had ne’er sent a man to meet his final judgment in such an intimate way,
and bled his mind, prodding, ‘Can I dare look at Him on my last day?’
Patrick sat opposite, however, like a statue: perfectly still and restrained,
not deigning to hear the Dark’s whispers with the strength of Charlemagne.
He only moved to wipe dirt specks from his rifle’s glistening barrel,
and once readjusted his cap with utmost respect for the soldier’s apparel.
‘How does he have that mettle,’ Niall wondered, ‘of which I do not possess,
for we’ve seen battles before, yet I alone am consumed by this distress.’
Visions fired at will upon his plagued senses, while he regretted what he wrought,
but within each blast he saw his famished family devoured by insects and rot.
Niall sprang onto his feet, digging his clench fingers into his frozen palms,
and paced by the flames to change his mind; yet there was no relief or calm.
Patrick slightly stirred, studying his comrade who remained tense and mum.
‘Get some rest Dingle,’ he paternally said. ‘We will fight when the dawn comes.’
The soldier would not listen, but resisted the impulse to scream into the shrouded night,
while watching the flames, blazing like a burning mountain, hurl to and fro with their might.
Embers spewed off the splintered wood, once cut for a bridge ne’er built;
and suffocated on the earth — drowned by winter’s drought that causes life to wilt.
‘Patrick,’ Niall quaveringly began instead. ‘What will become of us if we survive this war?’
His comrade’s eyes were steady, but he leaned forward more than he had before —
and outstretched directly o’er the fire his right hand that was tickled by the heat.
‘Sometimes Dingle,’ Patrick replied, ‘I long to return to a hearth stocked with peat.’
Leaning back, Patrick removed his blistered hand: ‘But I do not fool myself like so.
For our duty is to continue onward, and arm our souls before we reach our final home.
You — you, however, have no will if I may be so bold;
you are tossed by the passions — and by fear alone.’
As his piercing sight gazed upward, Niall curled into the tattered blanket,
while a sudden wind daggered him with the onslaught of brutal frankness.
He frightfully fled — dashing away from the camp though he was directionless,
and found himself on the river’s edge, dangling on the underworld like the hero Aeneas.
The black water gulped and belched, eroding the bank at a headlong pace,
but within its current, Niall swear he saw every dead man’s petrified face;
Their eyes were marbled — like the soldier whose boots he had taken —
as frayed, dull wails breached the unescapable waters of the forsaken.
Unheroic judgment crashed in Niall’s mind, as he watched the thrashing tide,
‘Be no return for me out of this depth,’ he cried inside, ‘for my soul has already died,’
A tempting tug pulled him toward the swirling, roaring, cavernous river,
as Niall — through tearful eyes — sighed: ‘From evil, may I be delivered.’
The water’s frost burned his underfoot, as he began to plunge himself forth;
t’was then a voice, as soft as a breeze and loud as a trumpet, floated from the north:
‘Niall, what labors are troubling you? Turn back while you can.
Do not commit ultimate despair. Give me your hand.’
Niall obeyed — and discovered the voice belonged to the Chaplain,
whose sturdy features radiated, moved by worry and compassion.
The crescent moon peeked forth from the heavy clouds only for an instant,
and blazed a path for the soldier to move back from casting away existence.
‘My apologies Father,’ Niall finally uttered on a dismayed tongue,
‘I am foolish — I have killed another, and my soul feels rather wrung.’
The Chaplain inched closer, wrapping his arm ‘round Niall’s shoulders,
and led him from the river’s bank to console the exhausted soldier.
‘Thou shalt not kill,’ the Chaplain replied, ‘that be a grave sin,
but to condemn thyself as the Betrayer — is as if you were killing Christ again.’
He let go of Niall, and braced his back against the trunk of a tree,
and grabbing a branch said, ‘Do not crumple like the leaves, for God has use for thee.’
The Chaplain stroked his beard, which basked in the moon’s glow once more,
and Niall felt his soft eyes examining him fully — like a doctor of the soul.
Niall wrestled with his sorrows, as the river rushed like bombarding artillery;
but he recouped his senses, asking, ‘If He has use for thee, why did he make me free?’
‘Free? To fall you mean?’ the Chaplain replied, ‘Would you rather be a slave?
The very thing our ancient ancestors fought failingly, yet bravely to their graves?
Believe this: only to sin can one be truly enslaved — which you have forgotten my son,
for Christ is risen. Through Him, he opened our Home and that be eternally won.’
Niall lowered his head in shadow, recalling the Black man who died in the alley,
‘Only in death will he freely walk among the lilies of the valley —’
But this he kept to himself, while the Chaplain pruned a dead twig off a branch,
and tossed it on the frozen ground, sickening Niall to where he ‘ppear blanched.
Moments passed and not a word was exchanged between the pair,
and Niall tried to hide his fearful face from his companion’s stare.
An agonizing silence lurked within too — but he felt cannonballs pound his innards,
to which he nearly hurled volcanic ash that leaves souls hungry and withered.
Niall’s mind was whisked toward Baile an Chótaigh’s verdant hills once more,
to the sheep, the shore, the ox, and family — and the famine he longed to ignore.
‘How ashamed they’d be if they saw what I had tried to do,’ he wondered.
‘To die a second death, and unceasingly relive the hail of fire and thunder.’
Niall’s voice shivered, while the Chaplain patiently waited for him to speak;
which the soldier felt compelled to do, for reconciliation he begged to seek.
‘But do I have the courage,’ Niall questioned. ‘I am low — I am weak,’
as a gentle wind wiped away a tear off his reddened cheeks.
‘Can I be forgiven,’ he asked aloud. ‘For I failed mightily in my duty,
not only as a soldier in this crusade, but in our Christianity.’
The Chaplain’s hands were folded together, no longer pruning,
as he witnessed Niall’s eyes shine in the moonlight — no longer hidden from viewing.
‘It is not too late until it is,’ he softly responded. ‘You have more in this drama,
for we do not know who else needs to see our courage to soldier onward.’
Niall stood erect, though his shoulders felt labored and burdened,
while he ruminated on his heart, both languished and hardened.
He glanced down at the dead man’s boots once more — which began to burn;
‘Father,’ Niall sheepishly asked, ‘was it wrong to take these from the uninterred?’
The Chaplain, now a few paces beyond, slightly turned his inquisitive head,
and with an enigmatic voice proclaimed, ‘Did He not say, let the dead bury the dead?’
The Chaplain walked off into the trees, back toward the Union camp,
without stumbling over roots or stones, as if the moon were his own lamp.
Niall stayed a few moments longer as the Rappahannock’s tide subsided,
then surrenderously wandered along the bank’s brush like one guided.
The fields where he shepherded were at once before him, clearer than the present:
with the grazing sheep roaming the fields, as the wind carried salty, earthy scents.
They peacefully munched under his dutiful, tender watch and care,
and no prey lurked within or out of his periphery — for they would not dare.
‘How far I have come,’ Niall reflected as he steadily walked like he did in his youth,
before the famine and war, which shrouded the illuminated path toward the Truth.
T’was then he stumbled upon an emerald boxwood that, to his delight, survived winter’s spear;
He tenderly plucked a branch — and like Eire’s straw — placed the sprig behind his ear.
Suddenly a bugle’s bellowing blare ruptured the early morning air,
reigniting yesterday’s commotion with shadows swirling in the fires’ glare.
The brief tranquility Niall basked in began to ebb into distant memory,
bringing him forth into the land of the living, shattering his feet’s revery.
‘To arms!’ Niall heard the call ring out — which at first, he wished to ignore,
for the tempting urge to flee boiled within to escape the war forevermore.
‘No,’ he firmly silenced the whisper that would have led him from the men,
‘I am not dead yet — but if this be the end, then it shall be the end.’
Unbeknownst to him, Niall’s paw clutched a multitude of boxwood sprigs;
he raced to the campground, finding Patrick’s shadow cast on the trees both tall and big.
The soldier readied for battle without a word, nor did he greet his comrade’s return,
only nodding slightly as if he knew everything Niall encountered and learned.
Niall also prepared for the oncoming havoc, though without a coat for warmth,
and stowed his blanket upon the cot like it were a task he was obligated to perform.
‘You ne’er know,’ he uttered, ‘this is the nearest to home we will ever see for a time —
or make our items’ collection easier for others, since we cannot carry them to the Divine.’
Patrick nodded once more, acknowledging a truth his comrade had seem to grasp,
and fixing his cap, he noticed the sprig behind Niall’s ear of which he asked:
‘Dingle, where did you find a living plant ‘round these wintry, torn lands,
for its green reminds me of the trees in Sligo, where I first learned to stand.’
Niall bequeathed him a branch, which he firmly set in his friend’s cap,
and there it brightly blazed against the drained blue, tightened ‘neath a strap.
A tear trickled ‘cross Patrick’s mighty nose that dripped into the fire,
‘Thank you, Dingle,’ his voice choked. ‘Tis a small token of an old desire.’
Canteens clanked. Boots pounded. The lines formed ‘neath varying hues,
of green for the old country, and Red, White and Blue for the new.
Niall found himself between Patrick once again, and the Boy,
listening to the Captain’s instructions on the generals’ moves and ploys.
As Niall heard of the charge that they were to undertake in the course of the day,
he felt the hard, yearning eyes of those surrounding him — even those from a ways.
They mesmerizingly stared at the sprigs affixed to Niall and Patrick’s attire,
and knew they too longed for the token, and the land they knew prior.
He could not deny their unspoken, yet desperate pleas,
and thus his pockets became empty, as he passed out the sprigs freely,
‘If this be our home now,’ Niall prayed, ‘may the seeds of Eire’s memory here take root.
May He, the ultimate shepherd, protect us all on this glorious route.’
T’was then wrathful gunfire rumbled, quaking from Marye’s Heights,
unforgiving and unrelenting, punishing the Union’s sacking the previous night.
Niall gulped, but restrained enough to be in command of his passions,
as every furnace fueling his strength could not be cooled or rationed.
He stiffened his back, gripping the rifle’s butt with straining hands,
whose tendons rose and fell like the cliffs and rocks from the homeland.
His vision tried to peer through the wintry mist now wafting o’er the battleground,
that lay like a pall o’er the appalling, mangled dead and gargled shrieking sounds.
‘Those poor souls,’ Niall prayed, urged to rush forward t’ward their tears,
but he stayed between Patrick and the Boy — for his duty be to stand with his peers.
Seconds turned minutes, minutes turned hours, yet their regiment stayed still,
watching wave upon wave crash into the mist, only to be shredded by guns lining the hill.
The Greys’ cannon blasts fractured the mist ‘ppearing like shards of glass,
shattering the remnants o’er a trodden, frothy sea of blue coats and torn grass.
‘They will send us to our slaughter,’ one voice mumbled, ‘and what will we gain?
For a chicken could not live on that field — a charge now would be insane and in vain.’
Several concurred, shaking in their boots and on the verge of abandoning their post,
including the Boy, who Niall heard whisper, ‘Those guns leave no soul left to even be a ghost.’
Beads of tears and bloody sweat mingled ‘neath the Boy’s softened, calloused eyes,
and Niall, himself afraid, wondered how he could soothe the doubtful, despairing voices inside.
He placed a gentle hand on the Boy’s shoulder, the latter who timidly looked upward;
There were no illusions Niall could offer, for no grin arose along with a profound word.
Yet the soft eyes harkened those of his dying mother’s — when Niall was lost of what to do;
placing his own sprig in the Boy’s cap, the soldier calmly reassured, ‘I am here with you.’
The Boy’s chin quivered, though he reaffixed his eyes straight forward on the task ahead,
and twisting his feet in the solid soil, stood erect, resisting fear’s incapacitating spread.
Suddenly, the Captain whisked to the front of the line, for the time had now come:
‘Men, we are to charge at last,’ he cried. ‘Let us show the enemy of where we came from!’
The doubtful mumblings had ceased as the regiment reconstituted its composure,
while the standards inched onward, with bullets ripping the golden harp and clovers.
All the seas traversed and muddy miles Niall marched, he knew this is where he had been led,
‘Death be not a black velvet sleep or path to fall,’ he realized. ‘But a chance to rise instead.’
In the corner of his eyes, Niall caught the last sight of the Chaplain, blessing the men,
and heard the words of absolution, followed by a solemn, yet firm ‘Amen.’
Meanwhile, the wintry mist turned to metallic clouds that struck Niall’s senses,
as he and the others weaved ‘round the fallen from the Union’s failed offenses.
He saw the wounded reach upward, and drag others down amidst the frenzy,
yet he, Patrick and the Boy still charged toward the guns’ flames, of which were many —
they were beyond count, and buried in a sunken road, lashing out powerfully,
accompanied by deafening blows that whooshed and whizzed at them furiously.
Men fell. Men cried. The pounding did not die, battering against the brigade’s will.
Ash and snowy soil were cast into the sky, while the earth drank the blood spilled;
in the mayhem, Niall once more found himself without his comrade —
stopping and ducking, he called out for Patrick with every strength he had.
But there was no reply. A chill erupted from the core of his soul,
as he began frantically searching the endless bodies, all torn and cold.
Sprigs were scattered ‘cross the slope, but none were of his friend,
and the hail of fire whispered to him, ‘Yee will n’er see him again.’
Niall’s eyes burned from the smoke and loss as despair suffocated him;
the brigade’s standard had fallen in the muck, along with their Captain.
The newfound hope he had earlier acquired seemed then to evaporate and expire,
while he forcefully wiped his brow, which profusely oozed and perspired.
But there was no hope he could see.
The brigade had stalled in the chaos, and some turned to flee.
E’vry instinct wrangled him to go back —
vying for safety and to relinquish his soldierly task.
A vision masked his eyes, witnessing the fallen souls drowning in an endless river,
fighting for breath against the roaring current, as its biting wind made him shiver.
His burning boots strangled him like a condemned man at the gallows,
who dangles on the precipice of entering the eternal shadow.
Yet in the mire before him, Niall’s sight caught a sprig that brightly glowed,
upon the Boy’s cap, the same of which he had earlier bestowed.
Alive, the Boy clutched his hands behind his head, laying prone,
but Niall noticed the youth’s resolve shrivel amidst the gun bursts and the dyings’ groans.
‘Who will inspire us on,’ Niall wondered, realizing the question was a folly,
for the colors laid still, tattered by the Greys’ vitriolic volleys.
As roiled soil buried the trampled flag, he felt the centuries’ sting of oppression and turmoil,
t’ward his famished family and verdant hillside, which stoked his ire that boiled.
Yet those Irish hills were of yesteryear, his sheep had since gone and disbanded,
and on America’s hill Niall saw the despair in the men, who hope left stranded.
He then remembered the Chaplain’s words: of men needing a witness —
to see courage in the darkness, and lead them on the path to Greatness.
‘There is no one else. This is my duty,’ Niall discerned, as the biting chill melted;
He launched himself t’ward the flag and waved it while the ground ‘neath him was pelted.
‘C’mon men!’ he proclaimed. ‘Soldier on! For they sing no tales for cowards!’
As they saw him rush the enemy alone, the brigade arose to fight, feeling empowered.
Moving o’er his strewn kin, Niall charged headlong, clearing the way for those with him;
No bullets, no blasts deterred the soldier this time — unchained from fear’s empty whims.
He neared the sunken road, even so far as seeing the whites’ of the Greys’ eyes,
that ‘ppeared as the mist and cannon clouds lifted, revealing their shock and surprise.
Victory swept o’er Niall for he perceived it within his grasp —
however, the sensation was ruptured for his breath turned to gasps.
A bullet struck his chest, and he now leaned on his ancestors’ colors,
propping himself upright, lest avoid striking despair in the heart of his brothers.
He crawled over the sprawl that laid beyond with the flag as a cane,
but was hit by more blows and debilitated by a searing pain.
From the road, Niall heard a commander sternly yell, ‘Hold your fire!’
which the guns obliged, quashing their furious fury and ire.
The world was darkening, fading —
Niall knew this would be the end of his crusading.
As twilight descended, he fell clutching Eire’s flag in the war of attrition;
still, he thought one Grey admiringly said, ‘They were doomed, but held steadfast to their mission.’
With the little strength left, Niall looked ‘round seeing the green sprigs in the dirt,
as if sprouting anew, though most were cut down by the bellowing cannon bursts.
A tear came to him: ‘Truly, these men go before me to the Almighty,’
as he rolled to look skyward, ‘please have mercy on them and pity on me.’
He recalled the man in Sharpsburg, whose boots he took and wore,
and discovered his feet no longer burned, nor were tender or even sore.
Niall nearly laughed to himself, for he knew they both would share the same fate,
‘Protect the next man who wears these to not be burdened by sin’s enslaving weight.’
Twilight turned to night as the cold swept o’er the fields of Fredericksburg,
as Niall heard the scroungers mourn, gathering the dead and humming a dirge.
Yet relief o’erwhelmed him as light from his youth glided o’er him, dancing blue, purple, and green —
‘Home is here,’ Niall breathed calmly and tearfully, for he now understood: He had been heard. He had been seen.
**
The Boy combed the battlefield — surviving the last onslaught by the Greys —
before the Union generals called an end to the doomed foray into the fray.
He found Niall underneath the standard, whose eyes were at rest,
and saw the gaping wound that tore open his comrade’s once vital breast.
He began to shed tears, wiped his nose, and fixed the sprig in his cap,
while a cold feeling caked his worn, tattered boots that were no longer intact.
The Boy noticed Niall’s boots brightly, oddly glisten, as snow perched on them,
and, though guilt set in, he sensed his comrade would have gifted them to him.
Tossing the old aside, the new wore comfortably as the Boy thanked his friend,
and where his speech failed, a sudden urge swelled within to sing to Niall’s memory instead:
‘From a world aways came Niall O’Connell, a shepherd boy and soldier,
who against Despair and Death, placed the brigade on his brave, mighty shoulders —’