Memorial Wreath
In the green month when resurrected flowers
Like laughing children ignorant of death,
Brighten the couch of those who wake no more,
Love and remembrance
blossom in our heats,
For you who bore the extreme
sharp pain for us,
And bought our freedom
with your lives.
And now,
Honoring your memory, with
love we bring
These fiery roses, white-hot
cotton flowers
And violets bluer than
cool northern skies
You dreamed of in the
burning prison fields
When liberty was only
a faint north star
Not a bright flower planted
by your hands
Reaching up hardly nourished
with your rich blood.
Fit grave fellows you are
for Lincoln, Brown and Douglas
and Toussant . . .all those
rapt eyes.
Fashioned a new world
in this wilderness.
American earth is richer
for your bones:
Our hearts prouder for
the blood we inherit. |
Next
|
For the
more than 200,00 Negroes who served in the Union Army during the
Civil War -- Dudley Randall |
President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation:
". . . The tide of the war was sluggish in 1862, Lincoln was meditating
a great forward step in the march for humanity: all slaves held by the
rebels would be free. this act injected new spirit and purpose into the
cause of the Union. The end of slavery was formally accomplished by the
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution , adopted in 1865.
Horace Greely, New
York Herald, was an
ardent champion and influential
voice
advocating for the immediate
execution of the order which was to become the
Emancipation Proclamation.
President Lincoln wrote to
Mr. Greely:
"If I could save the Union without
freeing
the slaves. I would; or, freeing
some and not freeing others."
The times were perilous. The South
had invaded the North. And Europe was earne debating the recognition
of the Confederacy. While, President Lincoln was earnestly awaiting a Northern
victory as the background for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.
Antietam Creek, north of Harper's
Ferry, Va. provided the location a nd occasion for this goal. The audacity
of Gen. Lee and the imeptness gave fuel to the eventual battle carnage:
7000 Confederacy and 1500 Northern casualities from this Union victory.
.
John
Brown
Frederick
Douglas
Toussant
L'Ouverature
|
