neath the enemy's guns, in the charge of
that terrible day?
They were firing above him and firing below, and the tempest of shot
and shell
Was raging like death, as he moaned in his pain, by the breastworks
where he fell.

"Go back with your corps," our colonel had said, but he waited the
moment when
He might follow the ranks and shoulder a gun with the best of us
bearded men;
And so when the signals from old Fort Wood set an army of veterans wild,
He flung down his drum, which spun down the hill like the ball of a
wayward child.

And then he fell in with the foremost ranks of brave old company G,
As we charged by the flank, with our colors ahead, and our columns
closed up like a V,
In the long, swinging lines of that splendid advance, when the flags
of our corps floated out,
Like the ribbons that dance in the jubilant lines of the march of a
gala day rout.

He charged with the ranks, though he carried no gun, for the colonel
had said him nay,
And he breasted the blast of the bristling guns, and the shock of the
sickening fray;
And when by his side they were falling like hail he sprang to a comrade
slain,
And shouldered his musket and bore it as true as the hand that was dead
in pain.

'Twas dearly we loved him, our Drummer Boy, with a fire in his bright,
black eye,
That flashed forth a spirit too great for his form--he only was just so
high,
As tall, perhaps, as your little lad who scarcely reaches your shoulder--
Though his heart was the heart of a veteran then, a trifle, it may be,
bolder.

He pressed to the front, our lad so leal, and the works were almost won,
A moment more and our flags had swung o'er the muzzle of murderous gun;
But a raking fire swept the van, and he fell 'mid the wounded and slain,
With his wee wan face turned up to Him who feeleth His children's pain.

Again and again our lines fell back, and again with shivering shocks
They flung themselves on the rebels' works as ships are tossed on rocks;
To be crushed and broken and scattered amain, as the wrecks of the
surging storm.
Where none may rue and none may reck of aught that has human form.

So under the ridge we were lying for the order to charge again,
And we counted our comrades missing, and we counted our comrades slain;
And one said, "Johnny, our Drummer Boy, is grievously shot and lies
Just under the enemy's breastwork; if left on the field