Sample Poems by Ryan G. Van Cleave
Winchester, VA—July 15, 1861
My Dearest Annie—
So sorry you were not prepared to receive
the intelligence of my enlistment. God
knows this bloody story, how it all launches
into flame, is one we’d like to douse before. . .
I fear this miserable scrawling will make no
sense—one hundred fifty men share this farmhouse
with me, all singing, fiddling, pacing, talking.
The pickets say battle soon. I cannot sleep.
Leave the cow at Mr. Miller res. And I
will write to several persons who owe me
to send their notes to you. My bowels all aflame,
I went out last night—General Johnston walked
by the pond, an air of learning on his lips.
He speaks Greek, Latin. Maybe we have a chance.
—Ezekial
Camp Harmon near Centerville—August
26, 1861
My Dearest Annie—
Almost unbearable, this anxiety.
So many alarms, but no fighting—not yet.
Neil Boyd was a good deal fatigued, and late last
night, he took the coward’s way. The picket guards
found his body on some doctor’s clipped grass yard,
beneath a fresh-picked fruit tree. Some say our own
boys got him for deserting. Me? I don’t know,
but things could be worse than they are. The camp fare
is agony, like something slipped out of Hell;
Lord, though, this is pretty country, so much green.
Do not send anything, except for dark gray
patches, and perhaps the glass and piece of hard
soap. I feel I may never scrub quite clean here.
Your Affectionate Husband,
Ezekial
Near Fairfax, C.H.—October 6, 1861
My Dearest Annie—
We sleep on our guns with cartridge boxes on
now; nothing to report except a huge white
balloon that went up from the Yankee camp on
Munsons Hill. I seen one like that once when I
was at a fair in Baltimore—they hitched up
this spaniel and let it go. That dog went cloud-
bound until it was a mere speck. Came down two
days later, no dog to be found in the harness.
Kiss dear little Andrew for me—he fairly
foamed with rage when he found out he couldn’t come
with me to fight Yankees. And him not yet eight!
I have requested a transfer to Cavalry,
which pays one hundred forty dollars a month.
My dear, brave Annie—will that do for a start?
Your Loving Husband,
Ezekiall
Night Guard Duty
I remember myself at fifteen, awkward,
too serious. Then, every night groan was just
our porch aging, or the earth testing a new
language. Here in the middle of God-Knows-Where,
the rail-tracks relax their spines, and every ditch
is covered with stars; it’s easy to think our
lives are exalted, one quick scene from herodom.
I feel it now—here—my soul unmoored, so light.
As a boy, I thought I could hear the spiders
breathing, the continuous choke of bellows
deep beneath the ground, down where my father worked,
scratching coal from a frozen highway of dirt.
O Lord, did he fear being crushed by rubble?
Can I, like him, survive a diet of duty?
Kearnstown—November 17, 1861
My Annie—
All we get now is sweet potato coffee,
which is a might bit better than parched sugar
or corn coffee, but worse than that is the meat,
all quarter ration of it, which tastes rather
horsey. Rumor has a Louisiana
regiment is eating dogs now; I think of
Old Buster out back of the barn and just hope
Colonel Nisbet’s men skirt wide of all our fields.
There are a great many blackberries here and
the largest ones you ever seen. A lot of
us went out yesterday and got all that we
wanted. Me? I traded mine for three good plugs
of tobacco, even though my pipe’s broke. Just
never know when you might forage up another.
Yours With Affection,
Ezekial
Greencastle, PA—March 14, 1862
My Darling Annie—
Excitement was at white heat—we caught us two
Federal spies and trussed them up to a pole
like witches. We shouted and yelled until hoarse.
Our patriotism was just bubbling up
and boiling over and frying and sizzling;
I was full of the mental champagne that comes
from a cheering multitude. Never saw such
enthusiasm—beats the first of the war.
Three fellows, who joined us not long back, they come
from Company H, 3rd Arkansas Infantry,
who all but was destroyed at Wilson’s Creek last
June. During the night, all three took knives made from
horseshoe files and stuck those spies good. The screams
woke us—God help us, no one’s cheering today.
Yours,
Ezekial