The Dead Haunt Me

June 10, 1861, Battle of Bethel Church.

A Union soldier’s poem after the battle.

Here I lie in this silent barricade

Bodies here, they do not restrain

As their lives fade

There is nothing they can regain

I cannot ever fully describe

How bloody it is here

More than scalping from an indian tribe

Is their blood so clear

The limbs are spewed

Faces are mottled

What this war has brewed

Cannot be kept bottled

For they are nothing but dead

Or soon to be so

The rest have fled

Yet I cannot not go

Oh how they brawled

So brave and true

Women would awe

At the things they would do

Yet I saw their bodies thrashing

As they died

Their teeth gnashing

Because of pain they cried

Cry after cry

Soul after soul

Oh my God why?

This burns like hot coal

How it plagues my mind!

Pierces my heart!

There is no love to find

No, not in this part.

The families cannot see them anymore

The friends, they cannot catch him when he falls

They will not be seen when opened is the door

And he shall not answer when for him they call

Never shall the father be seen

By the child so new

Never will the bride gleam

At her father who died in the morning dew

Their wives, now widows

The children, now poor

Never to be seen out of windows

Never to walk on their home floor

Chances of kin now are no more

Happiness for them is vanished

Never has sadness bitten this hard before

Thou serving is dished

My good friends

My fellow warriors

I wish this wasn’t the end

Of your story so mar

Now my head lilt

With the sound of gunshot one by one

My heart so full with guilt

This war physically but not mentally done

My God, my God, how I need you now

For I cannot go another fortnight

I do not know how

My people are dead because of this fight

Now I must go on

And go through hell again

Even though they are gone

Never forgetting the cries of my men

This is it

This is how it shall be

My love mashed like grit

While the dead haunt me