Heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battlefield calls;
Every nerve of the chargers has strain'd to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.
Under his spurning feet, the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flow'd,
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind;
And the steed like a bark fed with furnace ire;
Swept on, with wild eye full of fire.
But lo! he is nearing his heart's desire;
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.
The first that the general saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops;
What was done? What to do? A glance told him both,
Then striking his spurs with a terrible oath,
He dash'd down the line, 'mid a storm of huzzas,
And the wave of retreat, checked his course there,
The sight of the master compell'd it to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray;
By the flash of his eye, and the red nostrils' play
He seem'd to the whole great army to say,
I have brought you Sheridan all the way
From Winchester down to save the day.
Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan!
Hurrah!
