Poems About Our Heroes

Poems about the soldiers and sailors who gave everything

American Revolution

We were those winter soldiers

Who stood in Britain's way

"Disperse, ye rebels!" cried the King

"You're in the empire's way!"

We stood our ground at Lexington

Who fired that fateful shot?

But the lobsterbacks retreated

A battle not forgot!

Defeated at Long Island

We fought another day

We surprised the Hessian soldiers

On that Trenton Christmas day

We froze in camps at Valley Forge

Two thousand of us died

But winter thawed, von Steuben came

He drilled us 'till we cried.

And then the Brits outflanked us

Took Phil-a-del-faye-ay

But we chased them back to old New York

And that is where they'd stay.

Up in Saratoga

We thrashed the British still

They surrendered all their army

At the foot of Bemis Hill

And when the Frenchies finally came

We marched south to old Yorktown

And bottled up Cornwallis

And he threw his weapons down

We Continental soldiers

Threw out the British Crown

We gave the gift of liberty

And rest on freedom's ground

Soldiers

I am the ghost of Pittsburgh
In fifty-six I'd say
A Frenchman's musket killed me
They left me where I lay

And then I fought on Bunker Hill
Many red-coats there we saw
Dead in that violent melee
They left me in the straw

I was there at New Orleans
And the world's last human word
As I aimed my trusty rifle
"Look out!" was all I heard.

I am the ghost of Johnny Reb
I died at old Bull Run
"Up yonder come the Yankees, Boys!"
I was shot by Billy's gun

And I'm the one called Billy Yank
I died at Maryes Hill
I fell in heaps of bodies
As death's hunger had its fill

And then I was a dough boy
Who perished in the trench
As we peered out at the Germans
Who killed off half the French

And then I was a dog-face
Who fought in World War Two
I charged the beach at Normandy
Until a mortar shot me through

The rest were naught but conflicts
Not proper wars they say
But for those of us who died there
The worms still had their way

Sailors

I was a powder monkey

At England’s Flamborough Head

I followed Captain John Paul Jones

But a cannon shot me dead

I became an able seaman

Slept below decks on a shelf

I was shanghaied by the British

And I died in 1812

I joined the Union Navy

In eighteen sixty-four

A rebel musket slaughtered me

On Old Fort Fisher’s shore

At the Battle of Manilla Bay

I was a boiler tender

A boiler blew and burned me dead

Before the Spanish could surrender

Wilson’s war did not end wars

But it surely ended me

I was a Navy bosun

Who fell overboard at sea

I was on the Arizona

When shrapnel sliced me through

As fourteen hundred of my friends

Joined Davy Jones’s crew

I was a gunboat driver

On a river called Mekong

My crew was shot to pieces

By the crafty Viet Cong

Today I crew the steel-hulled ships

And like those who sailed before

I could die for love of country

While my loved ones mourn ashore

So, hats off to the Navy folks

And the ships that go to sea

They keep the sea lanes open

And guard our liberty

Our Civil War

We are the ghosts of Shiloh

Twenty thousand of us dead

Some were killed

In the hornets nest

Some on the surgeon's bed

Now we fly as eagles

Over lines of blue and gray

We hear the shouts

"They're comin' boys!"

As dead soldiers float our way

The Minnie balls and grape shot

Raked those human ranks so clean

They fell like wheat

Before the scythe

Red fields no longer green

And thousands died at Vicksburg

Antietam, Gettysburg

We fell in droves

At Marrye's Hill

Mowed down at Fredricksburg

Our bodies lie in unmarked graves

Our families know not where

They wouldn't know us anyway

For the dirt and worms we share

We are the ghosts of Malvern Hill

The war's last battle fought

If we could have lasted one more week

We'd share that peace they bought

Looking back to '61

When we gave that warlike shout

The Rebel Yell and Yankee cry

Like our youth is now bled out

Why did we fight our countrymen?

We dead can't tell you why

And our leaders ain't a-tellin'

Now with us here they lie

Our Freedom Fighters

There are those who loved their country

Who gave everything away

Their home, loved ones, and comforts

For freedom's future day

The men who froze at Valley Forge

Kept freedom's fragile ember

They are the parents of our country

Do not forget: remember!

As they primed Kentucky rifles

And fought those "lobsterbacks"

Just outside of New Orleans

Stopped the British in their tracks

They fought to save the Union

Or drive the Yankees from their door

But when Bobby Lee surrendered

They were countrymen once more

They were doughboys in the trenches

Endured the big guns' sound

They repaid our dear friend Lafayette

In white crosses on French ground

Four thousand died at Normandy

To see tyranny dismembered

Our parents heaved a grateful sigh

When the Japanese surrendered

There is a cost to freedom

It's the coin of sacrifice

It's spent for love of country

And can't be given twice

Those patriots gave everything

To freedom’s alabaster

Their graves provide its solid lath

The patriot's its plaster

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