"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Daisy Turner - The Boy We Loved So Well


Matthew Brady photo of Union and Confederate dead at Antietam in the Civil War


Battle dead at Antietam



Dear Madam,

I am a soldier, and my speech is rough and plain.
I'm not much used to writing, and I hate to give you pain,
But I promised I would do it, and he thought it might be so
If it came from one that loved him, perhaps it would ease the blow.

 By this time, you must surely guess the truth I feign would hide,
And you'll pardon me for rough soldier words, while I tell you how he died.

 It was in the maw of battle. Fast rained the shot and shell.
I was standing close beside him, and I saw him when he fell.
So I took him in my arms, and laid him on the grass.
It was going against orders, but I think they let it pass.

 'Twas a minne ball that struck him. It entered at his side.
But we didn't think it fatal 'til this morning, when he died.

 "Last night, I wanted so to live. I seemed so young to go.
Last week I passed my birthday. I was just 19, you know.
When I thought of all I planned to do, it seemed so hard to die.
But now I pray to God for Grace, and all my cares gone by."

 And here his voice grew weaker, as he paused and raised his head.
And whispered, "Goodbye, Mother." And your soldier boy was dead.

 I carved him out a headboard, as skillful as I could
And if you wish to find it, I can tell you where it stood.
I send you back his hymnbook, the cap he used to wear,
The lock I cut the night before, of his bright, curly hair.

 I send you back his bible; The night before he died,
I turned its leaves together, and read it by his side.

 I keep the belt he was wearing; He told me so to do.
It has a hole upon the side, just where the ball went through.
So now I've done his bidding. I've nothing more to tell.
But I shall always mourn with you the boy we loved so well.
Daisy Turner, Storyteller and Poet,
September 26, 1990
Daisy Turner (June 21, 1883 - February 8, 1988) was the 104-year-old daughter of a former escaped slave, Alexander Turner, turned soldier for the Union. In Ken Burns series, The Civil War, she recites this romantic poem in all of its brutal truths and exquisite sadness that has come to be as ageless as the pain it first bore when conceived and read.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-B171-0277 DLC

Dead Confederate soldier in the 'Devil's Den' - Gettysburg. July, 1863.
Casualties for both the Union and Confederates after three days of
fighting were greater than 50,000. 



Gettysburg, Pa. Bodies of Federal soldiers, killed on July 1,
near the McPherson woods



Gettysburg and Stories of Valor
Narrated by Keith Carradine





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