Tennessee Maiden’s Tragedy or Gatlinburg Sweetheart’s Grief, regards a young Smoky Mountain lass, who has just been notified of her true love’s death, at the battle of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. She pens the following poem, hoping to get it published in a Knoxville newspaper, as a memorial to her Tennessee hero.
“My noble commander! thank God, you have come; You know the dear ones who are waiting at home, And O! it were dreadful to die here alone, No hand on my brow, and my comrades all gone.
I thought I would die many hours ago, And those who are waiting me never could know, That here, in the faith of its happier years, My soul has not wandered one moment from theirs.
The dead were around; but my soul was away, With the roses that bloom round my cottage to-day. I thought that I sat where the jessamine twines, And gathered the delicate buds from the vines.
And there—like a bird that had folded its wings, At home, ‘mid the smile of all beautiful things, With sweet words of welcome, and kisses of love—Was one I will miss, in yon heaven above.
By the light that I saw on her radiant brow, She watches and waits there and prays for me now. My captain, bend low; for this poor, wounded side, Is draining my heart of its last crimson tide.
Some day, when you leave this dark place, and go free, You will meet a fair girl—she will question of me! She has kissed this bright curl, as it lay on my head; When it goes back alone, she will know I am dead. And tell her the soul, which on earth was her own, Is waiting and weeping in heaven alone.
My Mother! God help her! Her grief will be wild, When she hears the mad Hessians have murdered her child; But tell her ’twill be one sweet chime in my knell, That the flag of the South now waves where I fell!
It is well, it is well, thus to die in my youth, A martyr to Freedom and Justice and Truth! Farewell to earth’s hopes—precious dreams of my heart— My life’s going out; but my love shall depart, On the wings that my soul has unfurled, Going up, soft and sweet, to that beautiful world.”
Tennessee Maiden’s Tragedy is a poem memorializing a Tennessee Confederate soldier, but it should be remembered that the words and sentiments could apply to all troopers on either side of the conflict and every Sweetheart’s Grief.
Bummer
