Civil War Poetry (Dover Thrift Editions) [Paperback]

Paul Negri (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 11, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0486298833 | ISBN-13: 978-0486298832

A superb selection of poems from both sides of the American Civil War, this compilation reflects the struggle's heroism, horror, exaltation, and anguish. More than 75 inspired works include famous poems by Melville, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, and Whitman, as well as lesser-known verse by Julia Ward Howe, Edwin Markham, and many others.

Editorial Reviews

Review

By The Potomac by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Fredericksburg by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
All Quiet Along The Potomac by Ethel Lynn Beers
The Death Of Grant by Ambrose Bierce
The Hesitating Veteran by Ambrose Bierce
Dirge For A Soldier by George Henry Boker
The Bay Fight by Henry Howard Brownell
Abraham Lincoln by William Cullen Bryant
The Death Of Slavery by William Cullen Bryant
Mosby At Hamilton by Madison Julius Cawein
Boston Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Blue And The Gray by Francis Miles Finch
Three Hundred Thousand More by James Sloane Gibbons
The Reveille by Francis Bret Harte
A Second Review Of The Grand Army by Francis Bret Harte
Battle Hymn Of The Republic by Julia Ward Howe
Pardon by Julia Ward Howe
Robert E. Lee by Julia Ward Howe
The Dying Words Of Stonewall Jackson by Sidney Lanier
The Cumberland by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Killed At The Ford by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ode Recited At The Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865 by James Russell Lowell
Lincoln, The Man Of The People by Edwin Markham
Ball's Bluff; A Reverie by Herman Melville
A Dirge For Mcpherson; Killed In Front Of Atlanta by Herman Melville
'formerly A Slave' (an Idealized Portrait, By E. Vedder) by Herman Melville
Malvern Hill (july, 1862) by Herman Melville
The March Into Virginia by Herman Melville
On The Slain At Chickamauga by Herman Melville
The Portent by Herman Melville
Rebel Color-bearers At Shiloh by Herman Melville
Sheridan At Cedar Creek by Herman Melville
Shiloh; A Requiem by Herman Melville
Stonewall Jackson; Mortally Wounded At Chancellorsville by Herman Melville
The Surrender At Appomattox by Herman Melville
The Battlefield: Gettysburg by Lloyd Mifflin
Driving Home The Cows by Kate Putnam Osgood
My Maryland by James Ryder Randall
Gettysburg by James Jeffrey Roche
The Conquered Banner by Abram Joseph Ryan
Kearny At Seven Pines by Edmund Clarence Stedman
Sumter by Edmund Clarence Stedman
Lee To The Rear by John Reuben Thompson
The High Tide At Gettysburg by Will Henry Thompson
A Battle Ballad To General J.e. Johnston by Francis Orrery Ticknor
Little Giffen by Francis Orrery Ticknor
'our Left' by Francis Orrery Ticknor
The Virginians Of The Valley by Francis Orrery Ticknor
Charleston by Henry Timrod
A Cry To Arms by Henry Timrod
The Despot Treads Thy Sacred Sands by Henry Timrod
Ethnogenesis by Henry Timrod
Ode At Magnolia Cemetery by Henry Timrod
An Army Corps On The March by Walt Whitman
The Artilleryman's Vision by Walt Whitman
Beat! Beat! Drums! by Walt Whitman
Bivouac On A Mountain Side by Walt Whitman
Cavalry Crossing A Ford by Walt Whitman
A March In The Ranks Hard-prest And The Road Unknown by Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman
President Lincoln's Burial Hymn by Walt Whitman
A Sight In Camp In The Daybreak Gray And Dim by Walt Whitman
To A Certain Civilian by Walt Whitman
Vigil Strange I Kept On The Field One Night by Walt Whitman
The Wound-dresser by Walt Whitman
Barbara Frietchie by John Greenleaf Whittier
The Battle Autumn Of 1862 by John Greenleaf Whittier
Brown Of Ossawatomie by John Greenleaf Whittier
Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott by John Greenleaf Whittier
Laus Deo! by John Greenleaf Whittier
A Word For The Hour by John Greenleaf Whittier
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (July 11, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486298833
• ISBN-13: 978-0486298832
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #334,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #27 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > History > Americas > United States > Civil War
  • #58 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Anthologies

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Civil War in Poetry, January 23, 2007

By 

Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Civil War Poetry (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

During the mid-Nineteenth Century, poetry was a public form of expression with a broad appeal to Americans of different backgrounds and levels of education. For example, Abraham Lincoln had written poetry as a young man and retained a love of the art throughout his life. Thus, it is not surprising that Americans, both North and South, wrote an extensive amount of poetry during the Civil War Era. Some of this poetry is of high quality but, regardless of its literary merit, this poetry is important because it shows the many ways in which Americans of the Civil War era viewed this momentous event in our history.

This Dover Thrift Edition offers a good selection of Civil War poetry at a budget price. It consists of over 70 poems by 29 poets representing a wide variety of attitudes and feelings about the Civil War. In its short compass, it includes works both familiar and unfamiliar. Julia Word Howe's anthem, the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" appropriately opens the collection, but it is accompanied by two less familiar works which show a spirit of conciliation. Her poem "Robert E. Lee" offers a highly sympathetic account of the Confederacy's great general, and her poem "Pardon" is about John Wilkes Booth and the need for forgiveness. These poems are worthwhile in themselves and cast a new light on the famous "Battle Hymn".

Walt Whitman and Herman Melville were the greatest of the Civil War poets, and both are well-represented in this anthology. The collection includes 12 poems by Whitman including his great elegy on Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" and an equal number of poems by Melville, whose poetry still suffers from obscurity. One of Melville's poems, titled "Formerly a Slave" is a reflection on the direction that race relations in the United States would take following Emancipation. I would like to quote it here.

The sufferance of her race is shown,

And retrospect of life,

Which now too late deliverance dawns upon,

Yet is she not at strife.

Her children's children they shall know

The good withheld from her,

And so her reverie takes prophetic cheer--

In spirit she sees the stir

Far down the depth of thousand years,

And marks the revel shine,

Her dusky face is lit with sober light,

Sibylllne, yet benign.

Several poems in this volume describe individual battles, particularly the Battle of Gettysburg. I enjoyed Will Henry Thompson's once well-known poem, "The High Tide at Gettysburg" which commemorates Pickett's Charge on the third day of the battle. Of the Southern writers, Henry Timrod, the "Poet Laureate of the Confederacy", Sidney Lanier, and Francis Orberry Ticknor, among others, are represented, while the Northern poets include Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, and many more.

The American Poets Project of the Library of America has recently issued an anthology of "Poets of the American Civil War." This anthology is slightly longer and more expensive than the Dover and includes some overlap in works. (The volumes offer alternative readings of one poem, Henry Timrod's "Ode at Magnolia Cemetery.") But there are many fine poems in each of the volumes that are not found in the other. For those readers interested in exploring the Civil War in poetry, this volume and the Library of America volume make excellent introductions.

Robin Friedman.

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine collection, May 2, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Civil War Poetry (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

The concept of ' war' and the concept of 'poetry ' somehow do not go together. At times it must seem that the only real human response to the suffering , sacrifice and above all cruelty of war is silence.

But people speak to their reality , and war is certainly one of the great human realities. This group of poems contains most of the well- known poems written by Americans about ' the great Civil War.' It does not contain the greatest poem written about that war, as that poem was not written as a poem but as a kind of memorial speech on a field of battle. "The Gettysburg Address" is the great poem of the American Civil War. It reflects in the deepest way America's understanding of itself, its faith. It contains the deepest reflection of all on the experience of the War and its meaning.

In this collection there is a great poem , the poem written by America's greatest poet, Whitman, about the person who in some way more than any other embodies America to Americans, Abraham Lincoln. The poem is " When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed"

Most of the poems in the collection are verse, which express sincere feelings . I was somehow struck rereading the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' which I sang in school many years ago. Rereading how different and how slogan- filled it seems without that larger sense of the suffering of both sides which Lincoln so nobly displayed in the 'Gettysburg Address'

In any case this is a fine collection.