Confederate Daughters
by John Daly
While poets sing of warlike deeds
On battlefields stained gory,
And paeans chant, and garlands wreathe
For heroes - still the story
Of suffering unparalleled,
Brave duties done, though breaking
Were Southern women's hearts when through
The land with war was quaking.
Though sages sing of victories,
Of brothers' blood by brothers
Drawn warm in gushing flow, but ah!
What of our Southern mothers-
The Southern wife, the sister, and
The Confederate soldier's daughter,
That fear-faint waited for the lists
That came from fields of slaughter!
The roar, the crash, the battle shout
Of red war's deep damnation
A halo cast around the strife,
A lurid fascination,
That nerved the Southron foot to foot,
To die, or nobly stand
For land and life, for child and wife,
With naked steel in hand!
But what of her who bade farewell
To father, son, or other,
With tear-dimmed eyes and breaking heart,
The soldier's wife or mother,
Who smiling girt his uniform,
Her hot tears falling on it,
Said bravely: "Go, my all, and come
Back with your shield or ‘pon it!"
And, ah! when after every grand
So-called "victorious battle,"
With tens of thousands, blue and gray,
Moan low the hoarse death rattle,
What bleeding hearts in agony
With tear-dimmed eyes beclouded
Did Southern women mourn their dead,
Uncoffined and unshrouded!
Whence came the inspiration
That nerved the men in gray
For four long years to thwart and keep
The Northern hosts at bay?
Whence came that heroism,
Oft proved by every test?
Whence but imbibed with mother's milk
From Southern mothers' breast?
All hallowed be the name of her,
The mother of Robert Lee;
And she who taught his infant prayer
To Jackson, at her knee;
And of that Creole mother who
Kept jealous watch and ward
Oer infant steps, and thoughts and joys
Of our own Beauregard;
And she who molded youthful mind
Of Davis, first and last
Grand chieftain of a glorious cause
That glorifies our past-
All mothers of our knightly chiefs,
Who life did freely give
That honor, truth, and liberty
Should in the Southland live!
O mothers of the Southland,
Whose hearts have sorely bled
For Southern dead in soldier gray,
What hallowed tears ye've shed!
Whether in lone cabin ‘mongst the pines
Or mansion on the hill,
When orphans' wail caused widows' eyes
With scalding tears to fill.
Here's to our gentle women,
Who will keep forever bright
The memory of the heroes
Who died for "God and Right!"
Their gentle name, like music sounds
When floating o'er the waters,
So boys, all give an old-time "yell"
For our Confederate Daughters!
Our own Confederate Daughters who
Will he the future mothers
Of Southern youth and Southern maids,
That future race, my brothers,
Whose proudest boast of ancestry
Will be fore'er and aye:
"Our sires were Confederates,
Our fathers wore the gray!"
Ah, yes, the Southern soldier
Is still unto this day
Wearing his old color-
Still wearing of the gray;
For the gray is on each frosty head
And in each grizzled beard,
And ‘neath the tombstones gray where lie
Those whom no challenge feared!
O Daughters of the Southland,
From every Southern State,
Let ye but strive your mother's lives
And deeds to emulate!
Then will your name like music sound,
When wafted o'er the waters,
A paean to grand womanhood,
"United Confederate Daughters!"
