Classic Poem

'T WAS a question if the nation should such tender youth employ
As Robert Henry Hendershot, the little drummer boy;
A prodigy at drumming—being only twelve years old—
And a prodigy of valor as the story has been told:
At Fredericksburg's great battle
The soldiers heard the rattle
Of his drum!

There stood Burnside with his army in the soft December mud,
With the Rappahannock rolling like a war-dividing flood;
While the batteries of Robert Lee that crowned the farther ridge,
Dealing death, forbade the building of the needed pontoon bridge!
But Burnside came for battle,
And they knew it by the rattle
Of the drum!

When Burnside called for volunteers to make the other bank,
The Rappahannock Drummer Boy was first to leave the rank;
And while a cheer for Hendershot went up from every throat,
There followed thirty others, just enough to man the boat;
He said: “I'll stem the battle!”
And they heard it in the rattle
Of his drum!

“Clear out, youngster!” said the captain, “Back to camp I bid you go!”
And although he answered, “Yes, sir!” still he kept on thinking, “No!”
He was bound to cross that river; so he clung behind the boat,
With his little legs a-kicking—half a-swimming, half afloat;
He was eager for the battle
And to lead them with the rattle
Of his drum!

Lee's batteries ceased firing from the heights beyond the town,
Or Burnside with his cannon would have knocked the city down.
When the little boat had landed through that special storm of lead,
Nearly all the men were wounded, more than half of them were dead;
And a shell from out the battle
Had “busted up” the rattle
Of his drum!

With a dying soldier's rifle soon he clambered up the bank,
Looking every inch a hero, though a very little “Yank;”
He rushed into a building just as if he'd take the town,
But finding it deserted started in to burn it down,
Adding to the smoke of battle,
And to make up for the rattle
Of his drum!

Saw a “Johnny” in the garden kneeling down behind the gate,
With his gun poked through a knot-hole for some poor unfortunate;
Finding out he was not praying, little Bob hit on the plan
Of his capture—so he shouted, “Now, surrender, mister man!”
And with his loudest bellow
He bade the frightened fellow
Drop his gun!

Though the boy looked very little, yet the gun looked very big
To the “Johnny,” who kept saying: “Need n't shoot, ye little prig!”
And he marched before the youngster who could hardly raise his gun
As he took him o'er the pontoon, shouting, “Prisoner number one!”
The youngster thinking he
Had captured General Lee
With his gun!

Three cheers went up along the line, as fast the story ran,
For Robert Henry Hendershot, the boy who took the man!
And straight to General Burnside he took the man in gray—
The chieftain hailed him proudly as “the hero of the day!”
“You fired the men for battle
Much more than by the rattle
Of your drum!”