NO SILENT TEARS WILL FALL

FORT PILLOW

There is a place not far away where no silent tears will fall,
for these men who answered fate's demand few people can recall.

Their glorious deeds and daring acts and tears of joy and pride,
lie beneath the shattered earth on land where they fought and died.

Among their ranks were men of age and children barely grown,
and in their brightest time of youth their seeds were barely sown.

For why they fought and for what they died was the shadow of a dream,
beneath a tattered battle flag near a cold and bitter stream.

They fought like men with angels’ wrath and devils from below,
and on this field of bloody strife they met their Southern foe.

From dusk til dawn all through the night their glorious deeds were shed,
and in the early morning light they mourned their honored dead.

For in this place not far away where no mourners tears are shed,
lie the hopes and dreams of a hundred men that Union soldiers led.

A hundred men gave up their dreams on this field of bloody strife,
for a cause and for a land worth more to them than life.

These valiant men of African descent and patriotic lust,
rest on Fame's Eternal Camping Ground but their deeds have gone to dust.

Dedicated to the Black Union Soldiers of African decent who fought and died at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, April 12, 1864.