On plaques found on hallowed ground from sea to sea across our great nation, including Arlington National Cemetery, one will find verses from Theodore O’Hara’s elegiac poem “Bivouac of the Dead.” Few however, in our 21st century modern world know of its origin or appreciate its history beyond the snippets they may have glanced at on plaques or gravestones in historic graveyards they have visited.
Theodore O’Hara (1820 – 1867) was an officer in the United States Army during the Mexican-American War. After the Battle of Buena Vista (1847), he wrote this famous poem as a memorial tribute to the dead of this battle. Although O’Hara later fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, his poem became deeply connected with the mourning of Union dead. During the Civil War, as Arlington National Cemetery was being established (1864), Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs ordered lines from the poem inscribed on the cemetery’s gate, although without attributing them to the Southerner O’Hara. These lines soon graced the markers of many battlefields and cemeteries across the country.
The endurance of “Bivouac” through most of the 20th century is evidenced by its inclusion in anthologies and poetry collections: from 1920-63, it was found in 24 such texts. By 1973, however, the number fell to just 16 literary collections, in keeping with changing attitudes about military honor and politics.
Today this verse is found on McClellan Gate, 1879, the original entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, and in Antietam National Cemetery. Although the cast-iron tablets were largely removed during the late 1920s and early 1930s, they are extant at 14 national cemeteries: Los Angeles, Wood, Rock Island, Mound City, Marion, Keokuk, Dayton, Hot Springs, Leavenworth, Togus, Grafton, Finn’s Point, Cypress Hills, and Danville, IL.
In fall 2001, the National Cemetery Administration commenced an initiative to install a new cast-aluminum tablet featuring the first stanza of “Bivouac of the Dead” in all the existing national cemeteries where they are missing, as well as national cemeteries under development.
It is a fitting verse to ponder on Memorial Day weekend:
The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat
The soldiers last tattoo;
No more on Life’s parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On fame’s eternal camping ground
Their silent tents to spread,
But Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.
No rumor of the foe’s advance
Now swells upon the wind;
Nor troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;
No vision of the morrow’s strife
The warrior’s dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.
Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed,
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms, by battle gashed
Are free from anguish now.
The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle’s stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout, are past;
Nor war’s wild note nor glory’s peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that nevermore may feel
The rapture of the fight.
Like the fierce northern hurricane
That sweeps the great plateau,
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the serried foe,
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o’er the field beneath,
Knew well the watchword of that day
Was “Victory or death!”
Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O’er all that stricken plain,
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;
And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the gory tide;
Not long, our stout old chieftain knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.
Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr’s grave
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation’s flag to save.
By rivers of their father’s gore
His first-born laurels grew,
And well he deemed the sons would pour
Their lives for glory too.
For many a mother’s breath has swept
O’er Angostura’s plain —
And long the pitying sky has wept
Above its moldered slain.
The raven’s scream, or eagle’s flight,
Or shepherd’s pensive lay,
Alone awakes each sullen height
That frowned o’er that dread fray.
Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground
Ye must not slumber there,
Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air.
Your own proud land’s heroic soil
Shall be your fitter grave;
She claims from war his richest spoil —
The ashes of her brave.
Thus ‘neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,
Borne to a Spartan mother’s breast
On many a bloody shield;
The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The heroes sepulcher.
Rest on embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep shall here tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While fame her records keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps.
Yon marble minstrel’s voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanquished ago has flown,
The story how ye fell;
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter’s blight,
Nor Time’s remorseless doom,
Shall dim one ray of glory’s light
That gilds your deathless tomb.
Have an AWE-full Memorial Day Weekend!
William “Bill” Bacque