HOME
Lexington, Concord,
Breed’s and Bunker Hill.
Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine and Bloody Creek,
“I will face the enemy.”
Saratoga, Germantown,
Typhus, frostbite, starvation,
Bootless feet in scarlet snow, Valley Forge.
Monmouth, Savannah, John Paul Jones and
“Surrender be damned, I have not begun to fight!”
Charleston, Camden, King’s Mountain to Cowpens,
Hobkirks Hill to Eutaw Springs,
Yorktown.
Then the guns went quiet,
The last volley flew,
Twenty-five thousand lay quiet
Twenty-five thousand lay still.
Tripoli.
Raisin River, Sacketts Harbor,
The Battle of Lake Erie,
“We have met the enemy, and they are ours.”
Horseshoe Bend,
The Battle of Lake Champlain,
Fort McHenry and the rockets red glare,
New Orleans.
And the guns went quiet,
Air hung still,
Twelve-thousand lay quiet,
Twelve-thousand lay still.
The Alamo.
Fort Sumter.
Fort Donelson and Shiloh,
Rebels and Bluecoats,
Sword and powder,
Canister shot, grape shot, broken faces and boys.
Bull Run, Antietam, Stone’s River,
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg,
Pickett’s charge, Cemetery Ridge,
“The last full measure of devotion.”
Scurvy, malaria, dysentery, gangrene,
Vicksburg.
Chickamauga, The Wilderness,
Sherman’s March, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor,
“And with malice toward none,”
Appomattox.
Then the guns went quiet,
Glory, Hallelujah, the quiet,
Six-hundred thousand lay quiet,
Six hundred thousand lay still.
- Excerpt from "Home"
God Bless the veterans, the families they left. God Bless America, the nation they built.
God Bless America, July 4th, 2017.