Civil War Poetry

by Paul Negri (Editor)

The long agony of the American Civil War inspired a wealth of contemporary verse — from sentimental doggerel to sublime lyrics that rank among the finest American poetry. This inexpensive anthology brings together a superb selection of poems from both North and South, comprising the best and most representative poetry of those turbulent times.
Over 75 poems include works by many of America's greatest 19th century writers: Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, William Cullen Bryant, and many more. Also included are many fine poems by lesser-known poets of the period: Julia Ward Howe, Henry Timrod, Edwin Markham, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Francis Miles Finch, George Henry Boker, and more.
Among the selections in this volume: Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Boston Hymn," John Greenleaf Whittier's "Barbara Frietchie," "The Death of Slavery," by William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Killed at the Ford," Henry Howard Brownell's "The Bay Flight," "All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight" by Ethel Lynn Beers, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" by Walt Whitman, and many more.
Ranging from boisterous calls to arms to poignant memorials for the slain, these poems reflect the heroism, horror, exaltation, and anguish of the bloodiest and most crucial conflict in the nation's history. Anyone interested in the Civil War or American literature of the period will want this collection on their bookshelves.

Genres: Poetry, War, Civil War, History, Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

This compilation of poetry is pretty bad. The poems themselves are uninspiring and forgettable. Some gems, but not enough to recommend anyone wasting time on this particular book. It might be the fault of the editor himself or maybe civil war poetry might be all-around weak, but something about this selection was extremely disappointing.

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This poetry collection provides a good set of resources for those studying Civil War poetry. I suspect those poor souls, however, will come to realize that Civil War poetry was not great. This collection does a little work to contextualize the authors, but none to contextualize the poems themselves. The poems themselves, with a fair number of exceptions, are miserable to read - so bad that it makes me *not* want to study them or think about them any longer than my classes require me too.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The poetry itself is fine--a mix of poets writing about the war, some during and some after, and holding various different positions regarding it. Several of the poems are best remembered as songs, some are relatively little known. I would imagine most readers would go in expecting them to read like 19th century American poetry, because that's what they are--and they do.

My main criticism is that as an anthology, the poems are arranged by author but end up thematically and temporally scattered. The editor includes very little information on each poet, and often nothing at all on the context of individual poems.

[Rick Rapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short, but powerful, anthology includes works by all the famous 19th century poets as well as several lesser and unknown ones. Some of the works are profound; some are mawkish. All shake the soul with the senselessness of war and the loss of so many young lives. Some of the poems are instantly familiar to a student of American literature; others are written in elevated language bogged down by their classical allusions. Overall, Negri's collection is quite worthwhile and thought-provoking, especially in light of political upheaval and resurgence of Confederate ideals and symbols.

[Stan Prager · Rating 5 out of 5]

For almost exactly one full year, Civil War Poetry: An Anthology, edited by Paul Negri, lay on my night table, and occasionally I turned to it just before bed. It came to me last December as part of a “Secret Santa” exchange sponsored by LibraryThing and aptly branded as “Santathing.” I regret that I have never really embraced poetry, and as such it is an avenue in literature I rarely traverse. On the other hand, I remain fascinated with Civil War studies, and this was a dimension of that which I had never explored. Poetry had far more resonance to a wider audience in that era than it does today. It was indeed a surprisingly literate period, as I am reminded again and again in the Civil War correspondence that I personally have digitized and transcribed. Poetry in that age would have stretched far beyond the salons and drawing rooms of the elite to weigh on the minds and move on the lips of the ordinary soldier in the field. That is something that no historian of the war should overlook.
Civil War Poetry opens with arguably the most famous poem of the era, Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which was set to music and came to become for the north the anthem of the war [p1]. Most Civil War historians know that as Lee’s army marched into Maryland en route to Antietam, they chanted “Maryland, My Maryland,” in the hopes that the civilian population of this border state would rise up in support. The original poem, “My Maryland,” by James Ryder Randall, appears here [p12-13]. It too was later set to music and some came to call it “the Marseillaise of the Confederate Cause.” Despite this optimism, Unionist sentiment was particularly strong in the western part of the state, as celebrated in the famous if probably apocryphal poem “Barbara Frietchie,” by John Greenleaf Whittier, which also makes an appearance here [p24-26]:

“Shoot if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country’s flag,” she said

The range of this slender volume is impressive, and includes both the notable – Emerson, Longfellow, and Lowell – as well as the more obscure, such as Francis Orray (misspelled as Orrery in this edition) Ticknor. Although I had never heard of Ticknor, his poem “Little Giffen,” about a Confederate soldier badly wounded at Murfreesboro and nursed back to health by Ticknor himself, only to fall in a later battle, was quite moving [p33-34]:

And we watched the war with bated breath, —
Skeleton Boy against skeleton Death.
Months of torture, how many such!
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch;
And still a glint of the steel-blue eye
Told of a spirit that wouldn’t die.

I found less inspiring the several poems by the far more well-known novelist Herman Melville, but then I would be the first to concede that I lack the credentials to critique the quality of poetry, but rather only to react to how it touches me. The editor notes that “The Bay Fight,” by Henry Howard Brownell, was of the most famous battle poems of the war, yet I suffered immeasurably through its more than fourteen pages of verse [p61-76]. But again, who am I to judge?
Still, to read Walt Whitman, who served as nurse as well as literary icon, cannot help but inspire. His renowned elegies to Lincoln, “O Captain! My Captain,” [p95-96] and the lengthy “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” [p96-103] are included, but so too are lesser known titles, such as the poignant “The Wound Dresser,” [p91-93] and especially the tragic “A Sight in Camp in Daybreak Gray and Dim” [p91]:

A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim,
As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital
tent,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended
lying,
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket,
Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.

Curious I halt and silent stand,
Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first just
lift the blanket;
Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray'd
hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes?
Who are you my dear comrade?

Then to the second I step—and who are you my child and
darling?
Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of
beautiful yellow-white ivory;
Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face
of the Christ himself,
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.


Remarkably, it is in this lamentation to the dead that Whitman artfully resurrects their sacrifice and bequeaths their legacy to us more than one hundred and fifty years after they fell. So it was for me to randomly discover the power of poetry in an unexpected place! It is for surprising and perhaps long overlooked poems such as this that, in the end, makes Civil War Poetry: An Anthology so rewarding. I highly recommend this little book to all who want to round out their studies of the war, even if poetry may not be your first love.


My review of: "Civil War Poetry: An Anthology," edited by Paul Negri, is live on my book blog https://regarp.com/2016/12/31/review-...

[Hugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting anthology of poetry written during or around the Civil War. Poets of both the Union and Confederate sides. Thanks Pete!

[Angie Fehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the most part, I really enjoyed this collection. A few of the selections got a little long winded for my taste, but as a whole, the poems gave me a new perspective of this time in history. This pulls together a mix of poems that were written before, during and after the Civil War, some by war correspondents of the day, some by well-known writers -- ie. Whitman, Emerson, Longfellow, Herman Melville, Ambrose Bierce -- and some by more obscure authors. It was interesting to read that The Battle Hymn of the Republic actually began as a poem written by abolitionist / feminist Julia Ward Howe, set to music with the "Glory, Hallelujah" chorus added after the initial publication. Also, I never before noticed the line "Let the hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel" but after reading that Howe was a feminist of her day, I guess it stood out to me more. Also learned that Emerson's "Boston Hymn" was first read on the day the Emancipation Proclamation first went into effect. Didn't know that before! Some poems were especially powerful in their imagery. While "Little Giffen" was SO tragic, "All Quiet Along The Potomac" still brings forth such imagery in the mind! I also thought it was sweet to end the collection on the heartwarming "Driving Home The Cows" by Kate Putnam Osgood.