Civil War Poem by a Federal Patriot

This poem was published by an anonymous poet (identified only as “B.”) in 1862, when the Civil War was in its second year and it had become painfully obvious that a long, bloody struggle lay ahead.

It was published by the San Francisco Bulletin (San Francisco, California) on June 20, 1862:

The Very Last Ditch

When rude rebellion o’er the land
Ran up its flag on high,
It swore to win, or foiled in that,
In the last ditch to die.

At Hilton’s Head, the chivalry
Take to their heels and fly,
The sea not being deep enough
For a ditch in which to die.

At Donelson, the traitor Floyd,
The river being high,
Ran out his boats and stole away,
And lost his chance to die.

Pillow, in digging ditches skilled,
By all that’s great and high
Swore while he’d strength to leap a ditch,
In a ditch he would not die.

And Tattnall in the Merrimac
Would rather resign than die;
For blood, says he, much thicker is
Than water running nigh.

At Pittsburgh Landing, Beauregard,
His charger being dry,
Swore he should drink from the Tennessee,
Or a hotter draught, and die.

The Tennessee he could not reach,
The Yankees being nigh,
But the flames of Styx he’s welcome to
With the torrent rolling high.

The turbid Mississippi’s stream
Flowing New Orleans by,
Once filled the ditch when Jackson fought,
But now that ditch is dry.

O foolish boast and impotent!
Who are most quick to fly
And seize the sword, are not the men
In the last ditch to die.

But they who weighing well their cause
Its truth and right descry,
In the first ditch will quell the foe,
Or in the last ditch die.

—B.
San Francisco, June 20, 1862

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