The Trouble with Troy

 

[Note:  The following is one chapter of a larger work, entitled “1863”

an epic poem on the ‘Turn of Events’ at that time,  from two major events

of that year: Vicksburg and Gettysburg.

Several sources have been used and are acknowledged.]

 

 

~

Frustration and death plagued US Grant

the winter of Sixty-Three,

below the fortress of Vicksburg, encamped,

with the Union Army of the Tennessee.

 

The wet, cold floods and mud from the rain,

Confederate guns trained above them;

the casualty rate, continued to gain;

add this, to the mix of newspaper men

all calling for Grant’s quick removal;

made enemies fast for all that were cast,

both man and nature, against him.

 

The ridicule, clamor, and inherent danger,

Lincoln alone said: “Try him some little longer.

I can’t spare him.  There’s fight, still in the man.”

And so went, the campaign all winter.

The Troy of the West, sat on high ground,

above all the muck and the mire;

which Grant seven times had tried to get ’round,

resulting in deadly thrown fire.

 

And disease took its toll on the body and soul,

of the men in General Grant’s army,

in seeking egress, other access, the moil

gave no gain throughout storming.

 

Seven expeditions added to drudgery

the dangers of death and disease.

Through January, February,

and March came no ease

to the banks of the river that ran to the seas,

the Father of Waters, the Mississippi.

 

Three options, two options, one option only

boiled down to sail round from west and go east.

No Trojan Horse would Vicksburg appease.

And five winning battles before the besiege

of Vicksburg by blitzkrieg in seventeen days.

 

A whirlwind of action followed detraction

by nature, the Rebels, and the Mississippi.

The Seventeenth day of May set the siege

of the Troy of the West, by the river to seas.

~

 

 

 

©2013, Marvin Loyd Welborn

6 August 2013

 

Poem’s Score: 3.7