The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVI. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I.
§ 15. Civil Matters; Peace
All these are primarily concerned with the military side of the conflict. Civil matters, too, found poetic voices: Bret Harte’s The Copperhead and The Copperhead Convention, and Thomas Clarke’s Sir Copp, stinging denunciations; F. W. Lander’s Rhode Island to the South, full of prophetic challenge; Richard Realf’s To Triumphe, hopeful and resolute; W. A. Devon’s Give Me Your Hand, Johnny Bull, a friendly, earnest bid for British sympathy. Still more interesting are the numerous pieces that reveal the feelings of sorrowing men and women at home, and of soldiers sick for home. Specially memorable are Lucy Larcom’s Waiting for News, Kate Putnam Osgood’s extraordinarily pathetic Driving Home the Cows, C. D. Shanly’s The Brier Wood Pipe, Augusta Cooper Bristol’s Term of Service Ended, Read’s The Brave at Home, The Drummer Boy’s Burial (anonymous), and William Winter’s After All. From civil life came the tender and moving note of reconciliation in Francis Miles Finch’s The Blue and the Gray, written in 1867 when the news came that the women of Columbus, Mississippi, had decorated the graves both of Northern and Southern soldiers.