Upon the field of Gettysburg
The summer was high,
When freedom met her haughty foe,
Beneath a northern sky;
Among the heroes of the North,
Who swelled her grand array,
And rushed like mountain eagles forth
From happy homes away.
There stood a man of humble fame,
A sire of children three,
And gazed within a little frame,
Their picture for to see.
And blame him not, if in the strife,
He breathed a soldier's prayer:
O FATHER, shield the soldier's wife,
And for his children care,
And for his children care.
Upon the field of Gettysburg
When morning shone again,
The crimson cloud battle burst
In streams of fiery rain;
Our legions quelled the awfull flood
Of shot, and steel, and shell,
While banners, marked with ball and blood,
Around them arose and fell;
And none more nobly won the little frame
That held his children three;
And none were braver in the strife
Than he who breathed in the prayer:
O FATHER, shield the soldier's wife,
And for his children care,
And for his children care.
Upon the Field of Gettysburg
The full moon slowly rose,
She looked, and saw ten thousand brows
All pale in death's repose,
And down beside a silver stream,
From other forms away,
Calm as a warrior in a dream,
Our fallen comrade lay;
His limbs were cold, his sightless eyes
Were fixed upon the three
Sweet stars that rose in mem'ry's skies
To light him o'er death's sea.
Then honored be the soldier's life,
And hallowed be his prayer:
O FATHER, shield the soldier's wife,
And for his children care,
And for his children care.