INTRODUCTION
he poems and songs of the Civil War era are gripping and
powerful. From the secession of South Carolina and the openil/g
battle at Fort Sumter to Lee s surrender at Appomattox and Lincoln s
assassination， this wealth of literature records a remarkable period in
American history from an urgent， contemporary perspective.
Moved by the currents of the divergent principles and needs that tore
the radon in half， northern and southern authors alike express their
horror at the bloodshed and sacrificed lives. In these patriotic and
sentimental works， they tell tales of heroes and daring deeds， find solace
in memory， and commemorate their dead. Finally， after the bitter end
of the war， they assume the burdens of the peace and begin to recon-
struct the nation. In the voices of these poets--speaking， writing， sing-
ing---lies the full spectrum of the history and emotions of the Civil War.
This anthology owes its form and much of its content to a work
published some forty-seven years after the war had ended: Poetry and
Bloquence of Blue and Gray， volume nine of the ten-volume series
entitled The Photographic History of the Civil War. One of the original
editors of the Photographic History series， W. P. Trent， developed a
vehement dislike of the poetry selected for his volume by Dudley H.
Miles， so much so that he wrote in a curiously negative Foreword to
the book:
In literature as in life it will not do m assume unreservedly that
the fittest will survive， and then to argue that because something
has survived， it has proved its fimess. It will be gathered from the
tone of these remarks that I do not think that much of the poetry
Dr. Miles has included， suitable though it is for the present work，
would find a place in a volume edited with an exigence equal to
that manifested by the late Mr. Palgrave in his \"Golden Trea-
sury.\"
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