Poem

Eulogy for Eugene Forbes
(May 14, 1883 - February 7, 1865)


How sad I was to learn
(in the appendix of this book)
that you did not survive
the Confederate prisons.
Indeed, it was all could do
to turn to the biographical notes and read
that a few months later, in February ’65, you died -
still in the stockades.

Your diary entries while at Andersonville
render a tightly-held mind; observing much,
but complaining little
about the disparities in your world.
I was heartened to the core, though,
that along with your single-line screeds
about death, dysentery, and deprivation
that you relished a hard-won onion stew,
bartered for black-market blackberries,
and recorded rainbows and well as hangings.

You were a rock Eugene. Your words show that.
Each of us, each of us
should live dearer lives, for your sake.


September 4, 2014


The Civil War, The Fourth Year
Library Of America