For Our Famine Slain: A Poem From March 1865

The following poem appeared in the Carlisle Herald And Expositor on March 10, 1865, eight days after the death of Samuel Hollinger in Richmond from disease and neglect while detained as a prisoner of war. It is not known when word of Samuel's death reached home but the appearance of this poem preceded the return of recently exchanged and furloughed soldiers from Samuel's regiment. News from the prison camps, both good and bad, arrived in Carlisle throughout March, 1865.
The author of the poem was not identified.

Poetical

for the Herald

IN MEMORIAM

He shall not die unsung, nor yet unavenged.

Within a Southern prison, where the heavy air was rank,

And the gloomy walls were mouldering, in the darkness damp and dank:

When famine gaunt and gloomy, sat brooding night and day,

And human beings huddled, like shivering beasts of prey,

Lay a pale-browed youthful soldier whose face so saintly bright,

Seemed to have caught its beauty from the far off land of light.
The heavy lids drooped lower, his cheek grew pale and wan,
And the light from out that kindling eye, forever more was gone.
And day by day more slowly his feeble pulse beat,
Till the angel of Death in pity came with lagging feet.
He murmured sweet and childish things, and repeated his infant prayer,
While a comrade whispered his mother's name and smoothed the dark waves of his hair.
Then over his pallid features passed a smile as sweetly bright
As a beam from the open portal of the radiant land of light.
Then gathered 'round him those pale, sad men, and chanted a funeral psalm,
While the deep despair of their captive hearts gave place to a holy calm.
The sternest spirits grew tearful and mild as they bowed their heads to pray,
And the gloom of the living charnel house grew bright with celestial day.
Oh for one fold of the dear old Flag to shroud him for his rest.
Oh for one star from out its host to lay upon his breast,
Oh for a mother's or sister's kiss to press on those lips of clay,
And a tender hand to hide those eyes afar from the light of day.
O'er his grave no friend may weep but the mocking bird will sing,
And the southern flowers wake to life, with the breath of coming spring.
And the crash of War will come to that spot accursed of God,
Whence the cries of our starving brothers have risen from every sod;
Swift as from out the murky sky, the livid lightnings spring,
Shall be heard 'midst the bloom of the orange bowers, the clang of the sabres' ring.
The stately Palmetto shall bow its head, while the storm is sweeping by,
And the light of many a burning home, shall gleam in the lurid sky.
But he will not wake, or start from his rest when the flying squadrons come,
Or at morn and evening list to hear the beat of the reveille drum;
The angel of Freedom shall watch when he sleeps and never a slave shall tread,
A spot of earth whose bosom bears, the graves of our patriot dead.
Strike man of the iron heart! strike man of the willing hand!
For the Union our Fathers gave us and an undivided land.
But wield ye a surer, deadlier blow when ye strike for our Famine slain,
Whose graves as the stars above them, are thick on the southern plain.
Strike for the living and the dead! to the traitor heart with your steel!
And pour the blaze of your murderous fire where his shattered columns reel;
Press to his lips the cup we have drained - the cup of crimson gore,
'Till the blood of our murdered brothers shall plead from the ground no more.
Carlisle, March 4th, 1865