  By Edmund Clarence Stedman. [This virile cry for a fit leader for the Army of the Potomac was inspired by an editorial article of Henry J. Raymond in the New York Times. It was written in 1862, when the popular feeling of chagrin and humiliation over McClellan’s failure and Pope’s disaster at Manassas was most intense. Mr. Lincoln was so strongly impressed by the poem that he read it to his Cabinet.—Editor.] B Back from the trebly crimsoned field Terrible words are thunder-tost; Full of the wrath that will not yield, Full of revenge for battles lost! Hark to their echo, as it crost The Capital, making faces wan: “End this murderous holocaust; Abraham Lincoln, give us a MAN! “Give us a man of God’s own mould, Born to marshal his fellow-men; One whose fame is not bought and sold At the stroke of a politician’s pen; Give us the man of thousands ten, Fit to do as well as to plan; Give us a rallying-cry, and then, Abraham Lincoln, give us a MAN! “No leader to shirk the boasting foe, And to march and countermarch our brave, Till they fall like ghosts in the marshes low, And swamp-grass covers each nameless grave; Nor another, whose fatal banners wave Aye in disaster’s shameful van; Nor another, to bluster, and lie, and rave,— Abraham Lincoln, give us a MAN! “Hearts are mourning in the North, While the sister rivers seek the main, Red with our life-blood flowing forth— Who shall gather it up again? Though we march to the battle-plain Firmly as when the strife began, Shall all our offering be in vain?— Abraham Lincoln, give us a MAN! “Is there never one in all the land, One on whose might the Cause may lean? “Oh, we will follow him to the death, Where the foeman’s fiercest columns are! Oh, we will use our latest breath, Cheering for every sacred star! His to marshal us high and far; Ours to battle, as patriots can When a hero leads the Holy War!— Abraham Lincoln, give us a MAN!” Banner Banner
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