Lines for My Mother

PVT. Frederick Buckmaster

Poem written to his mother, Mary Ann,  on May 9, 1864

                                        Clifton, Tenn.

It is a calm still night Mother, the winds are lulled and still…

The moon’s soft light is beaming bright on yonder sleeping hill…

But this soft dreamy hour, Mother, no magic may impart…

To check the teardrops from mine eyes, the shadow from my heart…

I’m thinking of the hour, Mother, I bade you all, “Farewell.”…

How like that shadow on my heart, those parting accents fell…

And tho’ full many a weary month since that sad hour has passed…

Yet with its awakening memory, the tears fall thick and fast…

Then I took the parting hand, Mother, I sought to wear a smile…

Tho’ my heart was full to bursting with its weary load, the while…

It came but dim and darkly, thru the mist of blinding tears…

So do you miss me there, Mother, at morn, at noon, at eve…

Do you often fondly breathe my name and for my absence grieve…

And when thine eyes rest that fully, upon one vacant chair…

That do you think of me, Mother, say do you miss me there…

            Buckmaster joined the 15^th Iowa Infantry on November 12, 1861. He re-enlisted on January 1, 1864. He was wounded and captured by the Confederates during the Battle of Atlanta on July 22, 1864. He was imprisoned at the notorious Andersonville Prison and died there on September 9, 1864 at age 20. His mother was the Grandmother of my Great Grandmother, Nellie De Lay. The poem was preserved by my cousin Jackie Tobin.

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