quote:

Originally posted by Thrust_0311:

quote:

I ask God for strength that I might achieve;
I was made weak that I might learn to obey.

I asked for health that I might do great things;
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

I asked for riches that I might be happy;
I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I had asked for,
but everything that I had hoped for.

Almost despite myself my unspoken
prayers were answered;
I am, among all people,
MOST
RICHLY
BLESSED.

Unknown Confederate soldier... in 1864,

Thrust, Thats beautiful. A verry good post. Also a large amount of truth in it.

Thurst, I have that prayer on a parchment paper book mark in my union testament both of which were given to me by a group that does living history as traveling ministers civilian and military.This was a couple years back at Honey Springs I.T . I'll see if I can find thier site.

What amazes me is how these men, barely educated, had such poetic souls.

The units some times would gather around someone who knew thier letters and could sypher. Those men would have reading lessons from the main book carried by most soldiers wheather they knew thier letters or not. That was the scriptures. Gen'l Jackson was known to lead in some of the lessons himself. At the end of the war most of those whom survived could almost quote chapter and verse by memory.

quote:

Originally posted by Thrust_0311:
What amazes me is how these men, barely educated, had such poetic souls.

The main reason was / is that they had to learn. Theyeither learned or they stayed in the same grade till they did. I could make a two page post on the education in america in the 1800's. I'll be brief, Kids went to school 6 MONTHS. If you didn't pass the parent would pull you out of class and put you to work on the farm.

SHILOH, A REQUIEM
Herman Melville

Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low.
Over the fields in the clouded days,
The forest-field of Shioh-
Over the field where April rain
Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain
Through the pause of night
That followed the Sunday fight
Around the church of Shiloh-
The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting groan
And natural prayer
Of dying foemen mingled there-
Foemen at morn, but friends at eve-
Fame or country least thier care:
(What like a bullet can undecieve!)
But now they lay low,
While over them the swallows skim,
And all is hushed at Shiloh.

DREAMING IN THE TRENCHES
William G. McCabe

I picture her there in the quaint old room,
Where the fading fire-light starts and falls,
Alone in the twilight's tender gloom
With the shadows that dance on the dim-lit walls.

Alone, while those faces look silently down
From thier antique frames in a grim repose-
Slight scholarly Ralph in his Oxford gown,
And stanch Sir Alan, who died for Montrose.

There are gallants gay in crimson and gold,
There are smiling beauties with powdered hair,
But she sits there, fairer a thousand-fold,
Leaning dreamily back in her low arm-chair.

And the roseate shadows of fading light
Softly clear steal over the sweet young face,
Where a woman's tenderness blends to-night
With the guileless pride of a knightly race.

Her hands lie clasped in a listless way
On the old Romance-which she holds on her knee
Of Tristram, The bravest of knights in the fray,
And Iseult, who waits by the sounding sea.

And her proud, dark eyes wear a softened look
As she watchs the dying embers fall:
Perhaps she dreams of the knight in the book,
Perhaps of the pictures that smile on the wall.

What fancies I wonder are thronging her brain,
For her cheeks flush warm with crimson glow!
Perhaps-ah! me, how foolish and vain!
But I'd give my life to believe it so!

Well, whether I ever march home again
To offer my love and a stainless name,
Or whether I die at the head of my men,-
I'll be true to the end all the same.