Ball's Bluff Poem, Frederick West Lander

On October 23rd 1861, Colonel Edward Hinks assumed command of the 1st Brigade of Brigadier General Charles P. Stone's "Corps of Observation" at Edwards Ferry in the area around Poolesville Maryland. The brigade was composed of the 1st Massachusetts Sharpshooters, 7th Michigan, 19th Massachusetts and 20th Massachusetts. Hinks was taking over command from Brigadier General Frederick W. Lander, who had been wounded in fighting at Edwards Ferry on the 21st and had gone to the rear. Although Lander would later be assigned a division and engage Jackson that winter, he

Federal retreat back across the Potomac from Ball's Bluff.
Lander was wounded the next day in a skirmish at Edwards Ferry.

died on March 2 1862 of complications from his Edwards Ferry wound.

Lander wrote the following poem about Ball's Bluff. Oliver Wendell Holmes, future supreme court justice, was an officer of the 20th Massachusetts (in Lander's Brigade) who was also severely wounded at Edwards Ferry and is mentioned in Lander's poem.

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Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Aye, deem us proud, for we are more
Than proud of all our mighty dead;
Proud of the bleak and rock-bound shore,
A crowned oppressor cannot tread.

Proud of each rock, and wood, and glen;
Of every river, lake and plain;
Proud of the calm and earnest men
Who claim the right and the will to reign.

Proud of the men who gave us birth,
Who battled with the stormy wave
To sweep the red man from the earth,
And build their homes upon their grave.

Proud of the holy summer morn
They traced in blood upon its sod;
The rights of freemen yet unborn;
Proud of their language and their God.

Proud that beneath our proudest dome
And round the cottage-cradled hearth
There is a welcome and a home
For every stricken race on earth.

Proud that yon slowly sinking sun
Saw drowning lips grow white in prayer,
O'er such brief acts of duty done,
As honor gathers from despair.

Pride, it is our watchword; 'clear the boats''Holmes, Putnam, Bartlett, Peirson-Here'
And while this crazy wherry floats
'Let's save our wounded', cries Revere.

Old State - some souls are rudely sped -
This record for thy Twentieth Corps -
Imprisoned, wounded, dying, dead,
It only asks, 'Has Sparta more?'


- Frederick West Lander