Casualty of Love

“Boy, you never did see such a war!”
“I’ve never seen any war period, grandfather.”
“Well, you ain’t never heard such a war, and you prob’ly never will again.”

Alas, those southerners were not completely ill-bred
Along came the Merrimack with its iron plates
Changing naval warfare in a single day
    Boom! Clang – ricochet!

“Weren’t you a slave, grandfather?”
“Naw, son! We was freedmen! We was fightin’ on our own will.”
“But Mr. Lincoln didn’t really have authority to do that, right? And I thought that didn’t even end all slavery.”
“Well, you gotta understand, son, that the South’s secession from the Union was called unconstitutional. Mr. Lincoln could do what he wanted. Freedom was in the word ‘henceforward’... we was free from there on out, even if’n it weren’t immediate.”
    I, Abraham Lincoln,...do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and part of States, are and henceforward shall be free....

Rifle shot, bayonet thrust, saber stroke
Artillery proudly – powerfully – boomed
Load, fire, advance, reload
    Hold formation! Fill that gap!

Laying in the field with shells flying over
Perhaps they were foolish to have left their home
What a mess, what a mess
    I would have been glad to see my father coming after me.

That Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was something else
Leading his all-black 54th regiment into battle
Liberty, courage, honor, glory
    If this man falls, who will take the flag? I will, sir.

Although Fort Wagner did not fall
And nearly half of the men did
Those men showed the world something new that day
    Once let a black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S.; let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.

“How many were casualties, grandfather?”
“Some 600,000, they say....”
“But they died for a good cause, didn’t they?”
“We was fightin’ for our country, for our rights. We ne’er gave up. We was given an opportunity, and we wasn’t lettin’ it go to waste. Son, those fightin’ men was casualties of love.”
    Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.