“—ON OUR CHIEFTAIN SPEEDED, RALLIEDQUICK THE FLEEING FORCES.” [p. 105
THE BOY’S BOOK
OF
BATTLE-LYRICS
A COLLECTION OF VERSES ILLUSTRATING SOME NOTABLE EVENTS IN THE
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, FROM THE COLONIAL
PERIOD TO THE OUTBREAK OF THE SECTIONAL WAR
BY
THOS. DUNN ENGLISH, M.D., LL.D.
WITH HISTORICAL NOTES
AND NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS OF PERSONS, SCENES, AND PLACES
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1885
Copyright, 1885, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.
TO
ADOLPH SCHALK, Esq.
AS A RECOGNITION OF MANY YEARS OF UNBROKEN FRIENDSHIP, AND AS A TOKEN
OF ESTEEM FOR HIS MANLINESS AND WORTH
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY
THE AUTHOR
[Pg vii]
PREFACE.
During the last twenty-five years my work in verse has been mainlyconfined to illustrating the history of the United States, with occasionalstudies of local life and character. Of this, judging by notices of thepress, and their appearance in compilations of a patriotic or martialnature, the metrical narratives of battles seem to have been most approved;and it occurred to me that a volume embracing my productionsin that line of literary labor might meet with popular favor. Myfirst intention was to take up every notable event, so that the bookmight be a complete metrical history, and I prepared partly the matterfor the purpose, including the capture of the Serapis and the achievementsof Old Ironsides. But I found the volume would be inconvenientlylarge, and I abandoned my plan reluctantly.
The historical sketches prefixed in the proper places will be foundfull, unless the details are faithfully given in the text, when the introductionsare purposely made meagre. In either case they will be foundto be accurate, the verses being, as I have styled them, “metrical narratives”rather than poems. In that form, I trust, they more readilyimpress on the mind of the reader a sense of the patriotism and courageof our forefathers, and give a notion of the nature of the struggleby which these States emerged from a dependent condition to takehigh rank among the peoples of the world. The story of each eventbeing told in the first person, the style