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Posts Tagged ‘general’

George Washington And Smallpox by Dennis Allen Lange

Posted in Limericks, My Poems, tagged army, bard on the hill, crossing the Delaware, death rate, Dennis Allen Lange, general, George Washington and Smallpox, immunity, inoculate, limericks, poems, poetry, primitive, pus, vaccinate on June 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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Of vaccinate, Washington said, “No!”
Emphatic he was. “Out you go
…If as soldiers you do,
…Then as soldiers you’re through!”
But he changed his mind, ending woe.

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Vaccination was primitive in Washington’s time. Pus from
a smallpox victim was put into a wound to inoculate
another, giving them (for the most part) a slight case of
smallpox and immunity, though a few even died. When
Washington changed his mind and had his army inoculated,
the death rate in his army associated with smallpox went
from 160 out of 1000 to 3 of 1000.

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Fort Fisher Sounds by Dennis Allen Lange

Posted in Civil War Poems, My Poems, tagged Adelbert Ames, Admiral David Porter, Alfred Terry, armada, bard on the hill, Benjamin Butler, Blue Gray, Charles Paine, Civil War, confederate union, Dennis Allen Lange, Fort Fisher, general, North South, poems, poetry, port, Wilmington North Carolina on March 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Fort Fisher
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Boom, boom! Boom, boom! The Union navy fires!
Boom, boom! Boom, boom! – the Civil War’s bass choirs.
Boom, boom! Fort Fisher’s what the cannon’s see
As North tests its invincibility.

Boom, boom! Boom, boom! Shells whistle, fall, and crash!
Boom, boom! Boom, boom! They fall like fists and smash!
Boom, boom! Boom, boom! And one by one the guns
Within the fort become exploding suns.

Boom, boom! Boom, boom! The navy’s cannons roar!
Boom, boom! Boom, boom! Can ears take any more?!
Boom, boom! Midst shells, the fort can see (boom, boom!)
The blue ranks forming in the smoke and gloom.

Then silence yawns –
…………………………………..a bird, if live, could sing,
Be clearly heard if ears did not still ring.
A caterpillar, in his softest crawl
Would sound like chalk that screeches on the wall.

Did some slip to the ugly booming brutes
And quickly push on all the buttons – Mute?
Or did the noisy nightmare swiftly end
And all awake at once, calm comprehend?

And then –
…………………shrieks, moans, and whistles – boats begin!
Shriek, shriek! Whistle, whistle! A hellish din!
And all the demons in the devil’s hell
Were screaming, shrieking, moaning – whistles tell

Two armies of the blue to charge the fort
That guarded well the Carolina port.
A rata, a rata, a rat tat tat!
Crescendo swells! A rata tat tat!

Shriek, shriek! Whistle, whistle! They blow and moan!
Guns roar! Men yell! They fall dead with a groan.
The cannons more selective now – boom, boom!
And midst the sounds, Fort Fisher meets its doom.

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Another poem of mine about Fort Fisher:
https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/impregnable-fort-fisher-by-dennis-allen-lange/

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http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/fortfisher/history-articles/fort-fisher.html

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Abraham Lincoln And Robert E. Lee by Dennis Lange

Posted in Civil War Poems, My Poems, Villanelle, tagged Abraham Lincoln, bard on the hill, blue, Civil War, Dennis Lange, different breed, Emancipation Proclamation, freed the slaves, general, gray, history, nation's best, north, pedigree, poems, poetry, president, rebels, Robert E. Lee, south, Ulysses S. Grant, union, villanelle on June 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »

The Civil War etched two men into history,
Head, shoulders o’er the rest, two of our nation’s best –
A president and gen’ral: Lincoln, Lee.

Men came to recognize their pedigree;
They were a different breed; both in their roles could lead.
The Civil War etched two men into history.

One led the North and let the slaves go free;
One led the armed in gray, a fox in ev’ry way –
A president and gen’ral: Lincoln, Lee.

Less Lincoln, North might cave and bend the knee;
Lee knew what Grant would do, as though the future knew.
The Civil War etched two men into history.

One set a course midst scorn like scalding tea;
The other sat astride the route the Blue would ride –
A president and gen’ral: Lincoln, Lee.

Men fell; some soared, and blood became a sea
As two great men arose midst all a nation’s woes.
The Civil War etched two men into history,
A president and gen’ral: Lincoln, Lee.

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