So noble and so true;
He fell as a soldier on the field,
His face to the sky of blue.
His voice is silent in the hall
Which oft his presence graced;
No more he'll hear the loud acclaim
Which rang from place to place.
No squeamish notions filled his breast,
The Union was his theme;
“No surrender and no compromise,”
His day-thought and night's dream.
His Country has her part to pay
To'rds those he has left behind;
His widow and his children all,
She must always keep in mind.
– William
Wallace “Willie” Lincoln
SOURCES: Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the
White House, p. 99; The poem was published in The National Republican, Washington, D. C., Monday, November 4,
1861, p. 1.
Our people back in the days of the Civil War had such an amazing level of unselfish patriotism that we certainly may learn from. For God -( good) and for country! - the U.S. army motto...it appears many today are oblivious of this precious theme of unselfish conduct that is truly the essence of patriotism.
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