The Clank of Breaking Manacles

Ogden Standard Examiner (Ogden, Utah) Sep 12, 1928

When you read republican platforms you see the faces of Lincoln and Grant, you hear the emancipation proclamation, the clank of breaking manacles falling from the limbs of slaves, the battle hymns of the republic, and the glory of the stars and stripes.

When you read the democratic platforms you see the faces of James Buchanan, Jefferson Davis, and Grover Cleveland; you hear of secession and rebellion, panic and disaster, repudiation of national obligations, starvation of American labor, and the hauling down of the American flag.

Portsmouth Herald (Portsmouth, New Hampshire) Sep 23, 1902

…Mr. STEVENS desired to say….As the Constitution could not be executed in the seceded States, the war must be carried as against an independent nation. The people would admit the measures he had advocated from the onset. To arm negro slaves was the only way on earth to exterminate the rebellion, they would find. We must treat those States as now outside of the Union, as conquered provinces, settle them with new men, and drive the rebels as exiles from the continent. They had the pluck and endurance which were not at first realised on this side of the House. They had determination and endurance, and nothing but exile, extermination or starvation could make them submit.

Mr. STEVENS here caused an article to be read, a special dispatch to the Chicago Times, to the effect that Gov. ROBINSON, of Kentucky, had issued a che???r letter to the members of the Legislature, asking for their views on the President’s Proclamation, and that fully two-thirds were in favor of taking the State out of the Union if the Proclamation is enforced. That the State militia would go with the South, and that HUMPHREY MARSHALL ad stationed himself at Mount Sterling to receive them.

Mr. MALLORY wished to know what part of this ominum gatherum the gentleman wished to direct their attention.

Mr. STEVENS — That two-thirds of the Legislature are in favor of taking the State out of the Union.

Mr. MALLORY denounced this newspaper statement as utterly false. That Gov. ROBINSON will do anything like advising Kentucky to engage in the rebellion, or arm against the Government, is equally false. There was no ground for such assertion.

Mr. STEVENS — I am happy to hear it, as the statement came from a Democratic newspaper, and I doubted its truth very much. [Laughter.]

Mr. WADSWORTH noticed another branch of the article, namely, about HUMPHREY MARSHALL being at Mount Sterling. The last he heard of HUMPHREY was, he was 170 miles off. He was drunk and cursing Kentucky, because she would not rise like “My Maryland.” The muskets in Kentucky are in the hands of the militia. employed in the defence of the Union. The malignant correspondent of the Chicago Times had not the slightest foundation for saying that the guns would ever be turned against the Union.

In reply to a question by Mr. STEVENS, whether the proclamation would take Kentucky out of the Union, he said Kentucky cannot be taken out of the Union either by secessionists or by abolitionists or both combined. (Applause and cried of “good.”) As for the emancipation proclamation, we despise and laugh at it. The latest mustering of Gen. BRAGG shows only 2,300 Kentuckians in his army, and some 1,200 Kentuckians had deserted from HUMPHREY MARSHALL. His opinion was there are not five thousand persons who were once citizens of Kentucky, who are in the rebel army, but the course pursued by the Radicals, like the gentleman from Pennsylvania, has worked more mischief to the Union than all the rebels have done since July, 1861. France and England might join the United States, but if the negroes are set free under the Proclamation, the Secessionists never can be conquered. The Proclamation cannot be enforced in Kentucky — not one man in ten thousand is in favor it….

The New York Times (New York, New York) Jan 9, 1863

New York Times (New York, New York) Jan 9, 1863

*     *     *     *     *

[From the N.Y. Daily News]
THE PEACE CONFERENCE
[excerpt]

Mr. Lincoln offered no terms of compromise, and rejected, in advance, every proposition that did not accord with the extreme views of the faction he represents. He demanded unconditional submission to the Federal authority, and compliance with all the schemes of abolition set forth in the emancipation proclamation and the proposed amendment of the Constitution.

In brief, he gave the Southern people to understand that reconciliation was out of the question, unless they acquiesced in measures most repugnant to their feelings, and most antagonistical to their political convictions.

Galveston Daily News (Galvestion, Texas) Mar 4, 1865

The Chronicle Telegram (Elyria, Ohio) Sep 22, 1924

Not Yet! The Spirit of Liberty Still Survives

Image from RightWingStuff

ADDRESS

DELIVERED ON JULY 4, 1863, AT PADUCAH, KY., TO THE CITIZENS, AND THE 111TH REG. ILL. VOL.

BY JAMES BASSETT, ESQ.
[excerpt]

Fellow citizens! God intended us as one consolidated and great people, our physical geography so teaches. Whence our seaboard along the Atlantic, the Mexican Gulf and the Pacific, whence our lakes; whence our arterial rivers and our boundless plains, but to teach the lesson, that from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from the sunny Mexican Gulf to frigid Canada, we are to be one people, having a grand mission of liberty, which is the exponent of Christianity, the only great idea of liberty to man promulgated by God.

Are you prepared to give up that great mission — to resign nationality — to serve under aristocratic or kingly rule, under the iron sceptre of despotism — to cease to be freemen — to give up the memory of the past — and instead of being citizens of the great nation of the United States, become, it may be, members of some small confederacy, as one has said become citizens not of the United States, whose flag is respected in every land, but become citizens of what? of a small American nation, whose flag, the Palmetto, or some other ensign, steals into the harbour of some ancient nationality, and when asked about, the answer be, it is the flag of one of the obscure republics of America. Are you prepared I ask to blot out the past, despise the future? I rather think you will adopt the sentiment of the Representative poet of American W.C. Bryant, and say “Not Yet”

“Oh! country, marvel of the earth,
Oh realm to sudden greatness grown,
The age that gloried in thy birth,
Shall it behold thee overthrown?
Shall traitors lay that greatness low?
No, Land of Hope and blessing, No!

And we who wear thy glorious name
Shall we, like cravens, stand apart,
When those whom thou hast trusted, aim
The death-blow at thy generous heart?
Forth goes the battle cry, and lo
Hosts rise in harness, shouting No!

And they who founded, in our land
The power that rules from sea to sea,
Bled they in vain, or vainly planned
To leave their country great and free!
Their sleeping ashes, from below,
Send up the thrilling murmur, No!

Knit they the gentle ties which long
These sister States were proud to wear,
And forged the kindly links so strong
For idle hands in sport to tear,
For scornful hands aside to throw?
No, by our fathers’ memory, No!

Our humming marts, our iron ways,
Our wind tossed woods on mountain crest,
The hoarse Atlantic, with its bays,
The calm, broad Ocean of the West,
And Mississippi’s torrent flow,
And loud Niagara, answer, No!

For now behold, the arm that gave
The victory in our fathers’ day,
Strong, as of old, to guard and save,
That mighty arm, which none can stay–
On clouds above, and fields below,
Writes in men’s sight, the answer, No!”

How glorious is Liberty! It is a perennial flower, ever blooming, ever fresh. Let the conqueror, the tyrant wrap the world in flames, so that the blood of millions can not quench them, the Spirit of Liberty still survives, and grows stronger and stronger, while the oppression dwindles and dies. And the tree of American liberty planted by Washington, and nurtured by the blood of the patriots in 1776, whose branches have so spread as to encircle this whole continent, and towered so high as to be seen by all the nations, shall spread wider, and rise higher and higher; so that the Eagle of Liberty perched on its topmost bough shall glory in freedom, and the desponding of every nation find shelter under its kindly branches. That tree which is like the tree in the amaranthine bowers of Paradise whose leaves are for the healing of the nations; shall never be uprooted from the soil of free America, of these United States.

Centralia Sentinel (Centralia, Illinois) Jul 26, 1863

Touch Not That Flag

Image from Son of the South

TOUCH NOT THAT FLAG.

Traitor spare that flag!
Touch not a single star!
Its sheltering glory now
Still blazes near and far;
‘Twas our forefathers’ hand
That placed it o’er our head,
And thou shalt let it stand,
Or perish with the dead.

That dear old precious flag,
Whose glory and renown
Are spread o’er land and sea,
And would’st then tear it down?
Traitor! forbear thy touch!
Rend not its heart-bound ties!
Oh, spare that glorious flag,
Still streaming in the skies.

When I was yet a boy,
I gloried in the sight,
And raised my voice in joy
To greet its folds of light —
For it my home is dear;
Dear is my native land;
Forgive this foolish tear,
But let that flag stand!

My heart-strings round thee cling
Close as the stripe, old friend;
Thy praises men shall sing,
Till time itself shall end.
Old flag, the storm still brave,
And, Traitor, leave the spot!
While I’ve a hand to save,
Thy touch shall harm it not!

Allen County Democrat (Lima, Ohio) Jan 28, 1863

The Wounding of Gen. Stonewall Jackson

The Wounding of Gen. Stonewall Jackson.
Baltimore Sun, 2nd.

To-day is the twentieth anniversary of the date on which Gen. Stonewall Jackson, after routing Hooker’s right flank at Chancellorsville, and while pressing forward to sever the line of retreat of the main body of the Federal army, received from his own men, by accident, the shot which eight days later resulted in his death. To the Confederacy his loss was irreparable. Having been engaged in nearly every important action of the war in Virginia, and having distinguished himself in all, he had become among the Southern soldiery, as among the people, a hero whose presence on the battle-field was regarded as a sure omen of success. The list of the principal actions in which he participated —

Bull Run, Kernstown, McDowell, Front Royal, Winchester, Cross Keys, Port Republic, Cold Harbor, Cedar Mountain, second Bull Run, the investment of Harper’s Ferry, Sharpsburg or Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville —

is, with one two exceptions, a list of successes, reflecting the highest credit upon his military genius. His fame has become the common property of the country, and indeed, of the world at large, having long ago crossed the obliterated limits of the government for which he fought. The comparative obscurity in which he passed all but the last three years of his life finds a parallel in the mystery, or uncertainty, which in the popular mind surrounds the circumstances under which he was shot.

The question has been raised whether he was wounded by his own men or by the enemy, and, it being generally conceded that he was fired at by mistake by his own men, it has been a matter of hot discussion as to the regiment that made the fatal blunder. The facts, well substantiated by officers present at the time, are as follows: The front line of advance had been formed by Rhodes’ division, extending across the pike, but the division commanded by Gen. Colston, forming the second line, had, as the action progressed, become mingled with it. After nightfall, in a lull of the firing, it was undertaken to relieve the two divisions by A.P. Hill’s division of fresh troops. Jackson was impatient to have the attack recommenced, and, supposing that there was a skirmish line out in front between Rhodes’ men and the enemy, rode forward along the pike in advance of Hill to ascertain the enemy’s position, and in doing so passed through the line of battle beginning to be formed by Lane’s brigade of Hill’s division. Those of Lane’s men immediately in the road knew that Gen. Jackson had passed, but those further to the right and left did not. Hence some of Lane’s troops on the right of the road, seeing Gen. Jackson accompanied by several signal-men and couriers, in their front, mistook them for the enemy and opened fire on the party, wounding not a few of its members.

Those of their number still unhurt, including Gen. Jackson, to escape this fire, plunged into the woods on the left, where they were met with a second volley from the troops on that side of the road. Gen. Lane reports it as the opinion generally accepted at the time that it was the eighteenth regiment of his brigade of North Carolina that did the firing, mistaking Gen. Jackson and his escort for a party of the Federal cavalry. The result of the second volley was that the general was wounded in three places, two ball penetrating his left arm, shattering it and cutting the chief artery, and a third passing through the palm of his right hand. After some delay Gen. Jackson was borne to the rear. His arm was amputated and hopes of his recovery were entertained. But pneumonia soon set in, which was the immediate cause of his death on the 10th of May, 1863.

The Landmark (Statesville, North Carolina) May 11, 1883

Dissolution of the Union

Image from the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture

DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.
BY ALBERT PIKE.

Some twenty or thirty years ago one of the most popular of the young poets of America, was Albert Pike of Arkansas. The grace and vigor of his pen, the elegance of his scholarship, and the elevated tone of his thought, gave the brightest promise of an illustrious future. —  His patriotism in political life was equally conspicuous, and abundant wealth gave him means to pursue the career of an honorable ambition unfettered. But, unfortunately, a great portion of his wealth was in human chattels, and he was surrounded by, and associated with, men upon whom slave society had produced its usual soul deadening effects. A quarter of a century has passed, and the year 1862 found the same Albert Pike, who commenced his career as the rival of Longfellow, of Holmes and Halleck, a traitor to his country, and leading a horde of Indian savages to massacre, scalp and torture his countrymen.

These remembrances are suggested to us by the following verses, by Mr. Pike, which we find in “The Ladies’ Companion” for 1838, although they were written some years earlier, at the time of the nullification and threatened rebellion of South Carolina. The lines are almost prophetic, and it should seem that to read them to-day ought to make their author throw down his traitorous sword and go out and hang himself.

Down with the stars and stripes from out the sky!
Off with your banner from the bounding deep!
Chain up your eagle from his flight on high!
Bid him no more along the ocean sweep —
Scream to the wind — turn to the sun his eye!
Ay, down with Freedom from her rampart steep,
From promontory tall, and prairie wide,
Where she hath been, till now, so defied!

Listen, how Europe rings from land to land,
With jeer and laugh and bitter, biting scorn!
Lo, kings sit smiling, while the red right hand
Of Treason waves above a country, torn
With strife and tumult — and their armies stand
Ready to darken our yet breaking morn,
Lending their aid to this unhallowed strife,
So lately sprung of Terror into life.

Look on the future with prophetic eye!
Lo, on your plain are armies gathering,
As mist collecting when the storm is nigh —
And such a storm! Along the hill-sides cling
The light-horse — and the swift, patroling spy
Hoevers in front, like birds with restless wing —
While here, the rifleman moves sure, but swift;
And there, the musketeers, unbroken, drift.

The battle! Listen to the musketry!
While ever and anon, amid the roll,
Cries out the cannon! Lo, the cavalry,
Careering down like storms that seek their goal!
And now, as sea doth fiercely dash with sea,
The stern battalions charge, as with one soul —
And now, like seas that break in spray and rain,
The broken bands go floating back again!

The fight is o’er! and here lies many a one,
With bosom crushed by hoof or heavier train,
The hoary head lies glittering in the sun,
Pillowed upon the charger’s misty mane —
And just anear, with hair like moon light spun,
A delicate boy is fallen. Lo, the stain
Of blood around his nostril and his lip,
While just below his heart the gore doth drip.

The banner of your State is laid full low —
Rebellion seems approaching to its end —
And lonely shapes among the carnage go,
Peering into dead eyes with downward bend —
For men are seeking ‘mid the fallen foe,
A son, brother, or, at least a friend —
And ever and anon upon the air,
Rises the piercing wail of wild despair.

Where are you leaders? Where are they who led
Yours souls into this perilous abyss?
The bravest and the best are lying dead,
Shrouded in treason and dark perjuries;
The most of them have basely from ye fled,
Followed by scorn’s unending, general hiss.
Fled into lands that Liberty disowns,
And crouched within the shadow of tall thrones.

Ah, here they come — and with them many a band
Of hireling serfs, sent out by your liege lord
And good ally, the autocrat most grand,
Or august Emperor; he lends this horde,
To bend your brethren unto your command,
And you to his; Now draw again the sword!
Onward! ‘Tis God’s anointe I now that leads —
And he that dieth, for the Emperor bleeds!

And this! oh, God, is this to be our fate?
Disgraced, degraded, humbled and abased —
Sunken forever from our high estate —
To wander over Tyranny’s dark waste,
To crouch like slaves around a Despot’s gate —
Bend at his nod, and at his mandate haste?
Oh, Thou who hast thus far Thy aidance lent,
Avert the doom — Spirit omnipotent!

Turn then! before the final seal be set
To your apostacy — before the flood
Is wakened by your murmur and your fret,
And whelms you in its mighty solitude!
Turn to your duty, ere your land be wet
By the pollution of a brother’s blood —
Ere the avenging angel spread his wing,
And where its shadow falls herb never spring.

Oh, turn! that when some day men make your grave,
They say not, as they pile the parting sod,
“Here lies a traitor!” or, “here lies a slave!”
Turn! lest, henceforth, old men above it nod,
And warn their child to be no traitor knave,
To reverence their country and their God,
And never to deserve so foul a doom,
As that which men have written on your tomb.

Say! are you never troubled in your dreams,
With spirits rising from your fathers’ tombs,
And in the darkness of the moon’s thin gleams,
Warning you all of those eternal dooms,
Which haunt the traitor like devouring beams,
Until his heart is withered or consumes? —
Oh, these must haunt you — these more noble ones —
These heroes, who were Liberty’s best sons!

Had I a sire, who thus from death could rise,
Point to his wounds, and say, with these I bought
That freedom which you now so much despise —
With these I sealed the compact you have sought
To break and mar — Oh, I would close my eyes,
For shame, that I to shame had thus been wrought —
Yea — heap up dust and ashes on my head,
As knave corrupt, or idiot misled.

The Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) May 7, 1863

Grierson’s Raid

GRIERSON’S RAID.

BY B.P. SHILLABER.

Who has not heard of Grierson’s Raid,
And the feats of valor therein displayed?
‘Twas a brave, bold dash through the hostile land
That scattered terror on every hand,
Making the rebel heart afraid
At the daring valor of Grierson’s raid!

Over their mountains and over their plains,
The rider his galloping courser strains;
His sword gleams bright in the foeman’s face,
And ruin follows his onward pace;
While eyes are sad and hearts dismayed
At the terrible scourge of Grierson’s raid.

Through their cities and over their streams
The flag of the Union once more gleams;
There’s a curse on the air, but in under breath,
As the troopers go’on their work of death;
Like lightning flashes each loyal blade
To light the path of Grierson’s raid.

Onward, yet onward, oh, who may stay
The fiery tide of this fearful day?
It sweeps like a tempest along his path,
And whelms the rebel in vengeful wrath;
The smoking bridge shows war’s fierce trade,
And fire and ruin mark Grierson’s raid.

Onward, yet onward, the blazing roof
Echoes in flame to the cavalry hoof;
And fleeing forms in the midnight air,
Revealed by the war-pyre’s ruddy glare,
Tell the story, in fear displayed,
Of the woful, terrible Grierson’s raid.

Onward, yet onward, unholden the rein,
Till the Union lines are compassed again,
Where a meed of grateful honors is due
For the troopers bold, and tried, and true;
And history never has deed portrayed
That brighter shines than Grierson’s raid.

And rebel mothers their children shall tell
Of the sudden fear that on them fell,
When, swooping down like a bird on its prey,
The Federal troopers came that way, —
A sad recital as ever was made,
The memories dire of Grierson’s raid.

The Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) Jun 18, 1863

Grierson image from Dennis Keating’s  article, Grierson’s Raid, at the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable

Put it Through

Image from the History website – Civil War: Mathew Brady Photo Gallery

Put it Through.

Loose not one single band,
Binding our Union grand,
Woe is on all the land
If you do.

Chorus —
Long as the rebels can,
We can fight, man to man,
Traitors the war began,
Put it through.

Stop not for parley, when
Knaves fall on honest men;
Blow for flow give again, —
Three for two!

Till the last foe is dead,
Or, over all is spread,
Proudly the white and red,
And the blue.

Law shall in triumph reign,
Order shall come again,
Courage and hope remain,
To the True.

The Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) Jun 18, 1863

SEE THE BATTLE. —

“Here’s your Daily Times — all about the battle!” cried a newsboy the other day, vending his wares.

An individual with shoulder-straps, hearing the exciting announcement, purchased a copy, and hastily glancing at the headlines of the dispatches, remarked to the dealer in afternoon literature, “Where’s all about the battle? I can’t see it.”

“No,” said the boy, “and you never will see it as long as you hang round this city.”

The Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) Jun 18, 1863

Peace at any Price

Peace at any Price.

Peace — yes, peace with the men who would basely betray us!
Let the treacherous hand be in friendliness pressed!
Let us welcome the foeman that’s seeking to slay us!
Let the poisonous serpent be clasped to our breast!

Since there’s nothing so wrong in one’s being the hater
Of whatever is noble and lofty, why, then,
Let poor Judas no longer be curst as a traitor,
And let Satan go back into heaven again!

Let us show to the thief where our treasures are hidden;
Let us polish a sword for the murderer’s hand;
Let the breakers of oaths and of compacts be bidden
To sign pledges of peace and write laws for the land.

Let the scruples of honor and right be surmounted,
And, since now is the time for concession, why, then
Let poor Judas among the Apostles be counted,
And let Satan go back into heaven again!

The Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) Feb 19, 1863

Popping Corn

Image from Heirlooms by Ashton House

POPPING CORN.

We were popping corn,
Sweet Kitty and I;
It danced about,
And it danced up high.
The embers were hot,
In their fiery light;
And it went up brown,
And it came down white.
White and beautiful,
Crimped and curled,
The prettiest fairy dance in the world!
The embers were hot,
In their fiery light,
And it went up brown,
and it came down white.
Ah! many a time are the embers hot,
And the human spirit can brook it not,
Yet radiant, forth from the fiery light,
Cometh transform’d and enrobed in white.

The Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) Jan 26, 1860

POPPING CORN.

And there they sat a-popping corn,
John Stiles and Susan Cutter;
John Stiles as stout as any ox,
And Susan fat as butter.

And there they sat and shelled the corn,
And poked and stirred the fire,
And talked of different kinds of ears,
And hitched their chairs up nigher.

Then Susan she the popper shook,
Then John he shook the popper,
Till both their faces grew as red
As sauce pans made of copper.

And there they shelled, and popped and ate
All kinds of fun a-poking,
And he haw-hawed at her remarks
And she laughed at his joking.

And still they popped, and still they ate,
(John’s mouth was like a hopper,)
And stirred the fire, and sprinkled salt,
And shook, and shook the popper.

The clock struck nine, the clock struck ten,
And still the corn kept popping;
It struck eleven and then struck twelve,
And still no signs of stopping.

And John he ate; and Sue she thought —
The corn did pop and patter,
Till John cried out, “The corn’s afire!
Why, Susan what’s the matter?”

She said, “John Stiles, it’s one o’clock!
You’ll die of indigestion;
I’m sick of all this popping corn —
Why don’t you pop the question?”

The Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) Feb 26, 1863

Christmas Eves of Childhood

Image from The Bluegrass Special

Christmas Eve.

The following verses by a true woman, simple, touching, and teeming with mother-love, come to us from Monroe, Michigan:

‘Tis Christmas-eve! the tireless clock is tolling the hours away,
And my household all are sleeping, dreaming of Christmas-day,
My countless varying duties are finish’d, one by one,
Still, there’s always something left — my work is never done;
So I sit down by the cradle, my little one to rock,
And while I sing a lullaby, I knit for him a sock.

I’ve filled some little stockings with candy and with toys,
And hung them by the chimney-place, to please my darling boys.
There sleeping sweetly in their cribs, I’ve tucked the clothes in tight,
I’ve heard them say their evening prayer, and kiss’d them both good-night.
I know, that ere the daylight shall through the curtain peep,
Their Merry Christmas wishes will wake me from my sleep.

I’ve many, many thoughts to-night, and they are sad to me,
Two stockings only hang, this year, where three were wont to be;
The tears are falling thickly as I think of the day
When I laid that little stocking forevermore away;
For the happy one that hung it there not one short year ago
In yonder grave-yard quietly sleepeth ‘neath the snow.

How many little stockings, that on last Christmas-day
Were fill’d by darling little ones, have since been put away!
How many smiling faces, that to our nursery door
Came wishing “Merry Christmas,” will come again no more!
Their waxen hands are folded upon each quiet breast,
And the Sherpherd God has gather’d those little lambs to rest.

How many pleasant visions, and, oh what sad ones too,
With each succeeding Christmas-eve come vividly to view!
I see again my childhood’s home, and every loved one’s face;
The stockings hanging, as of yore, around the chimney-place,
From the wee red one of baby’s to grandpa’s sock of gray, —
Each in its own accustom’d place, not even one away.

But the pleasant vision passes, and one of darker shade
Reveals how many changes each Christmas-eve has made;
For those whose stockings hung there so closely side by side,
In happy days of childhood, are scatter’d far and wide!
A few still linger here to see this Christmas-eve pass by,
But many, many more to-night within the churchyard lie.

The baby’s sock is finish’d — ’tis sprinkled o’er with tears;
Where will his tiny footsteps wander in future years?
Perhaps this innocent will live to see as I have done,
The Christmas-eves of childhood steal onward one by one;
But whether a life of sorrow, or whether a life of joy,
I feel that I can trust with God my m???-loved baby boy.

The clock has struck the hour of twelve! I’ve put the sock away,
And by the baby’s cradle I now kneel down to pray —
To ask that loving Saviour who on Christmas morn was given
To save our souls from sin and death, and fit us all for Heaven,
That He would guide our footsteps, and fill us with his love,
That we may sing together a Christmas hymn above.

The Burlington Weekly Hawkeye (Burlington, Iowa) Dec 26, 1863