d Klan of Kuklux;
From this band of masking lynchers,
Who defied the legal councils,
Who withdrew the reins of power
From the tardy, lenient, rulers,
Who dealt quick and fearful justice,
To all hapless state offenders.
And the law-abiding people
Called the U. S. A. to aid them;
To disband the Regulators,
With their penalties mysterious,
To respite their guilty culprits,
From deserved but lawless peril.
And the garrison enlivens,
With its neat and healthful barracks,
With its drum and fife and bugle,
With its tents and lofty flagstaff,
With its officers and soldiers.
Colonel Rose was first to answer
The petition for assistance;
Then the "Fourth" sent troops to guard us
(The Fourth Infantry, C company.)
Captain Edwin Coates commanding,
Bubb and Robinson, Lieutenants,
With the Surgeon S. T. Weirrick,
Spent two years within our circles,
Winning friends while firm on duty.
Wolfe and Galbraith then succeeded,
For a few months of probation.
Colonel Fletcher, Major Barber,
And Lieutenant Will. McFarland,
Doctor S. L. Smith, the surgeon,
Now control the troops among us,
Now preserve the law and order.
Eighteen seventy-three was saddened,
By another fire disaster,[10]
Which consumed the new Bank building,
Burned the late established "National,"
On the fated Southeast corner,
Of the chastened hillside city.
And two handsome halls were numbered
With the property that suffered,
With the storeroom of the merchant,
The lamented H. S. Burnam;
And the Masons and Odd-Fellows,
Once again sustain misfortune,
Once again construct new temples,
For the gath'ring of the mystic.
On the fifteenth day of August,
Came the dreaded epidemic,
Came the poisonous contagion,
Came the cholera's gaunt spectre,
Spreading woe and desolation,
Ever bringing fell destruction.
Forty deaths were soon recorded,
Forty homes in sable shroudings,
All the bells were ringing "softly,"
For the crepe was "on the door."
A devoted band of nurses,
Led by William H. Kinnaird, were
Ready night and day to succor,
Ready to confront the danger,
Ready with true Christian courage,
To invoke a balm in Gilead,
To console ill-fated brothers.
Eighteen hundred, four and seventy
Finds the city of Lancaster,
In praiseworthy competition
With the spirit of the present.
Still the waxing, waning moonlight,
Sees her c
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