This hallowed ground once sanctified by brave men’s blood and tears,
this scene of fiercest combat
in all those sanguine years.
T’was here the awful salient, the mule-shoe vulgar named,
at Spotsylvania Court House, the battle’s new line framed.
Brave soldiers, North and Southern, for God and country fought.
Their cries of lasting glory, their bodies dearly bought.
The North for reign and riches, the Southern hearth and home,
all paid the ghastly price the same, their souls on this field roam.
And heaven’s mournful weeping, in driving rains pour down,
for needless death and slaughter, and sinful empire crowned.
In agony and weeping, ‘neath dead men piled high,
The wounded first to fall there,
‘Neath corpses slowly die.
Of such a scene of carnage, man’s pen cannot describe.
The dead in scores there lying,
Their faces to the sky.
Once strong in youth’s full beauty,
As nature does her part,
Their flesh now forms a rampart,
That rends a mother’s heart.
In Defense of Man 