Knoxville Weekly Chronicle

Little Giffen:

Out of the focal and foremost fire,
Out of the hospital walls, as dire;
Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene,
(Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen);
Specter! such as you seldom see,
Little Giffen, of Tennessee.

"Take him and welcome!" the surgeon said;
"Much your doctor can help the dead!"
And so we took him and brought him where
The balm was sweet on the summer air;
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed—
Utter Lazarus, heels to head!

Weary war with the bated breath,
Skeleton boy against skeleton Death,
Months of torture, how many such!
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch!
Still the glint of the steel-blue eye
Spoke of the spirit that wouldn't die,
And didn't—nay, more! in death's despite
The crippled skeleton learned to write!

"Dear mother," at first, of course, and then
"Dear Captain," inquiring about the men.
Captain's answer: "Of eighty-and-five,
Giffen and I are left alive."

Johnston's pressed at the front, they say;
Little Giffen was up and away;
A tear—his first—as he bade good-bye,
Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye.
"I'll write, if spared!" There was news of the fight;
But none of Giffen—he did not write.

I sometimes fancy that were I king
Of the princely knights of the minstrel ring,
With knaves and fools of power and pelf,
And each so loyal to all but self—
I'd give the best, on his bended knee,
Yea, barter the whole for the loyalty
Of little Giffen, of Tennessee.

[New York Standard.]