You got in the River-Wars? That were leeched with clamorous

skill,

(Surgery savage and hard,)
Splinted with bolt and beam,
Probed in scarfing and seam,
Rudely linted and tarred
With oakum and boiling pitch,
And sutured with splice and hitch,
At the Brooklyn Navy-Yard!

Our lofty spars were down,
To bide the battle's frown,
(Wont of old renown) -
But every ship was drest
In her bravest and her best,
As if for a July day;
Sixty flags and three,

As we floated up the bay —
At every peak and mast-head flew
The brave Red, White, and Blue,

We were eighteen ships that day.

With hawsers strong and taut,
The weaker lashed to port,

On we sailed two by two
That if either a bolt should feel
Crash through caldron or wheel,
Fin of bronze, or sinew of steel,
Her mate might bear her through.

Forging boldly ahead,
The great Flag-Ship led,
Grandest of sights!

On her lofty mizzen flew
Our Leader's dauntless Blue,

That had waved o'er twenty
fights;

So we went, with the first of the tide,

Slowly, 'mid the roar

Of the rebel guns ashore

And the thunder of each full broadside.

Ah, how poor the prate

Of statute and state

We once held with these fellows! Here, on the flood's pale-green, Hark how he bellows,

Each bluff old Sea-Lawyer! Talk to them Dahlgren, Parrott, and Sawyer!

On, in the whirling shade

Of the cannon's sulphury breath, We drew to the Line of Death That our devilish Foe had laid, ·

But as we ranged ahead,

And the leading ships worked in, Losing their hope to win, The enemy turned and fled And one seeks a shallow reach;

And another, winged in her flight, Our mate, brave Jouett, brings in; —

And one, all torn in the fight, Runs for a wreck on the beach, Where her flames soon fire the night.

And the Ram, when well up the Bay, And we looked that our stems should meet, (He had us fair for a prey,) Shifting his helm midway,

Sheered off, and ran for the fleet; There, without skulking or sham, He fought them, gun for gun. And ever he sought to ram,

But could finish never a one.

From the first of the iron shower Till we sent our parting shell, 'Twas just one savage hour

Of the roar and the rage of hell.