Some wore a uniform of gray
Some wore the one of blue
They were brothers from north and south
Some were sons and fathers too,
Each one was a soldier
A warrior in a fight
Now they are only ghost
Seen by men with sight,
Once their feet did march
Upon the battlefields grass
Now they are just an image
To be seen within the glass,
Many fell upon the field of battle
Some alone in a place so foreign
Now all that remains of them
Is a face on a sheet of iron,
When I look into the eyes on the faces
Of these men on iron or glass
I see not a ghost
But a man, a soldier from the past,
Though now he be only an image
He was once a soldier that in battle fell
And within each soldiers image
Is held a story he longs to tell.
RLB
Spent Sunday evening looking at some old photographs of soldiers from the Civil War and this came to me.
There's something about old photos of soldiers from the war that draw me, it's as if they yearn to speak to me and tell me their story so that we shall never forget.
Photos during the time of the Civil War were taken on glass,a ambryotype ,or on a thin iron sheet ,a ferrotype.