"A Campaign Incident"

(Library of Congress)

Henry Clinton "Clint" Parkhurst was born December 9th, 1844, in LeClaire, Iowa, which, incidentally, was Buffalo Bill Cody's hometown.  He began writing poetry at a young age and,  before the war, worked as a printer.  Once hostilities broke out, Parkhurst heeded Iowa's call and on February 12th, 1862, enlisted in Company C of the 16th Iowa Infantry.  He was 17 years old, 5'6" with blue eyes and blonde hair.

Parkhurst saw action in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Georgia with the 16th.  During the Atlanta campaign, he was taken prisoner and sent to Andersonville, Millen, and Florence.  Parkhurst survived the horrors of prison camp life  and was discharged on June 8th, 1865.

(Post war photo; Library of Congress)

 He returned to Iowa where he became a reporter for various newspapers.  He also worked on his memoirs, and published Songs of a Man Who Failed, a collection of his poems, in 1921.

 Parkhurst died on November 16th, 1933, at the Soldier's Home in Marshalltown, Iowa.








On p. 221 of Songs of a Man Who Failed, he recorded an encounter as related to him by pards finding a woman soldier dead in the trenches at Big Black River.  He entitled the poem, "A Campaign Incident" (Yes, he admitted in his memoirs to a "chronological inaccuracy" as he put it regarding the timeline as some of the events he eludes to occurred after the Battle of Big Black River Bridge.  He wrote the poem years after the war.):

Within the bloody trenches lay

The fairest one of Slaughter's prey.

His eyes were fixed with stony stare,

And yet his lips betrayed no pain,

But high resolve was mirrored there,

As though the doubtful field to gain

Were worth the piles of mangled slain

That smoked beneath the torrid air.

To see if life could still remain,

A sergeant, grim -with powder stain

—

A rude, rough fellow, quick to dare.

Yet kind of heart as women are

—

In tenderness knelt by his side,

And lifted back his dabbled hair,

And rent his bloody dress aside,

When lo! a maiden's breast was there.

A startled oath the soldier swore.

Then slowly rose in blank amaze.

Strange, weird things we had seen before,

In ventures wild of stormy days.

Alas! we saw fair cities blaze.

We saw the fierce tornado blend

Its wrath with Man's and Heaven send

Its lightnings down to quiet ours.

Around us were Destruction's powers

In every form and every phase.

In mellow light of summer moons

Louisiana's wide lagoons

Had borne us far to scenes where well

You might have deemed a wizard spell

Had bid the low green shores expand

To vistas of some fairy land.

On Tennessee's rich hills of fruit.

Along the Tallahatchie's tide;

Where amber Yazoo's floods are mute.

Or Etowah—Tuscumbia—glide;

Where Vicksburg towered in her pride,

Disputing for imperial sway.

Much had we seen 
No future day will far excel—much to appall.

To startle, rapture or dismay

—

But this strange sight surpassed them all.

The trumpets pealed—there was no time

For lamentations o'er the dead.

The foremost lines began to climb

A wooded height whereon 'twas said

The foe had rallied for a stand.

And so upon that gory crest

We made a grave where she might rest.

And laid her down with tender hand.

Her woes unknown, unknown her name.

She sleeps upon her field of fame.

No storied page her deeds will tell,

But calm she sleeps and all is well.

(Many thanks to Bob Welch for bringing this account to my attention January of last year while he was researching the 16th Iowa Infantry.)

A slightly different version of this poem appeared in an earlier publication in 1874 by Parkhurst simply called Poems on p. 41.