Margaret Junkin Preston (19 May 1820 – 28 mar 1897 | Milton PA – Baltimore MD) poet, essayist, memoirist, Confederate, blind later in life.

There is sorrow at Beechenbrook. Who ever would dream that grief could be there? She

feels the hot blood of the nation beat high; with rapture she catches the rallying cry. Days

come and go – she watches the strife so evenly balanced ‘twixt death and ‘twixt life. The

fire burns dimly, and scattered around, the men lie asleep on snow-covered ground. I’m

ashamed to be happy, merry, or free, as if war and its trials were nothing to me. The wild

tide of battle runs red – dashes high. And thick as white asters in autumn are found tents

all bestrewing the carpeted ground. Hungry and cold, with weariness pent, you droop in

your saddle, or crouch in your tent. Fierce and fast-thronging calamities rush resistless as

destiny o’er us — and crush the life from quivering hearts. When we hang on the verge of

despair, there still is capacity left us to bear. Break, my heart, ease this pain; cease to throb,

tortured brain: He is slain on the battlefield! The red war-tide has wreaked its wild wrath!

Preston, Margaret Junkin. Beechenbrook: A Rhyme of War. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet, 1866. https://archive.org/details/cu31924022147338/page/n79/mode/1up