(Note from Sue:)  My Mother, Nona Brummett Montgomery, loved poetry and raised all of her eight children with daily recitals of poems (and stories) of all sorts, from the well known to some that had never been written down.  She memorized the two here about the Civil War when she was a school child in Kentucky early in the 1900s. 

My brother Steve had the great foresight to make a recording of Mom and her poetry and I've transcribed these from that recording.  I don't know their origins, but they are quite old. 

(The pictures on this page are of Kentucky wild flowers.)

Thanks, Mom.

Below these two poems, I'm also printing
A Grandson's Answer.

A Georgia Volunteer

Far up the lonely mountainside my wandering footsteps led.
The moss lay thick beneath my feet; the pines sighed overhead.
The trace of a dismantled fort lay in the forest nave.
And in the shadows near my path, I saw a soldier's grave.

The bramble wrestled with the weed upon this lonely mound.
A simple headboard, rudely writ, had rotted to the ground.
I raised it with a reverent hand, from dust it's words to clear.
But time had blotted all but these, "A Georgia Volunteer."

I heard the Shenandoah roll down the rocky glen below.
I saw the Alleghenies rise up toward the realm of snow.
The Valley Campaign rose to mind, it's leader's name, and then,
I knew the sleeper had been one of Stonewall Jackson's men.

What fights he fought, what wounds he wore are all unknown to fame.
Remember on this lonely grave there is not even a name.
That he fought well, and bravely too, and held his country dear
We know, else he would never have been a Georgia Volunteer.

He sleeps.   What need we question now if he was wrong or right.
He knows 'ere this whose cause was just in God the Father's sight.
He wields no war-like weapons now, returns no foe-man's thrust.
And who but a coward would revile an honest soldier's dust.

Roll on old Shenandoah, proudly down thy rocky glen!
Above thee lies the grave of one of Stonewall Jackson's men!
Beneath the cedar and the pine in solitude austere,
Alone, unnamed, forgotten, lies a Georgia Volunteer.

Stonewall Jackson ca. 1855

Thomas Jonathan Jackson lived in Lexington, VA from 1851-1861, while he was a professor of Natural Philosophy and an instructor of artillery tactics at the Virginia Military Institute. During that decade Jackson joined the Lexington Presbyterian church, married, bought the only home he ever owned, and lived quietly as a private citizen. In April, 1861, Jackson rode off to war. He never returned to Lexington alive. Following the first battle of Manassas, T.J. Jackson became widely known by the nickname "Stonewall."  Jackson earned lasting fame for his leadership of Confederate forces, especially during the Valley campaign of 1862. "Stonewall" Jackson died in May, 1863, as a result of wounds received at Chancellorsville.

Two Soldiers

Two soldiers lying where they fell upon the reddened clay,
Daytime foes, at night in peace, breathing their lives away.
Brave hearts had stirred each manly breast,
fate only made them foes.
And lying, dying, side by side, a softening feeling rose.

"Our time is short," one faint voice said.
"Today we've done our best.
Today we've been in battle.  But tomorrow we'll be at rest.
Forgive each other while we may, life's but a weary gain.
And right or wrong, the morning sun will find us dead the same.

Life lies behind.  I might not care for only just my sake
But far away are other hearts that this day's work will break.
Among New Hampshire's snowy hills there prays for me tonight
A woman and a little girl with hair like golden light."

And with that thought broke forth at last, a cry with anguish wild
That could no longer be repressed, "Oh God, my wife and child!"
Then said the other dying man, across the Georgia plain,
"There watch and wait for me loved ones I'll never see again.

A little girl with dark, bright eyes, each day waits at the door.
But father's step and father's kiss will never meet her more."
And then the soldier in the blue touched hands with the one in gray,
From Hampshire's hills and Georgia's plains,
and soon they passed away.

A Grandson's Answer
(January 2000)

Vivid and sad these lines of woe,
I read them through and through.
 Out of time, another place,
Would they be me, or you ?
 
A brave soul dead, two to die,
Each held a righteous cause,
For us here now in selfish times
Would fill our hearts with awe.
 
The lesson great from those before,
Not in fear or cowardice wallow.
 That freedom bought in blood and toil
God grant that we would follow.
 
Robert Lee Dunaway III