It is very likely that the following poem was read at the meeting. It was read at a war meeting two days later in nearby Pocahontas, Illinois.
From a poem first published in the New York Evening Post, July 16, 1862: We are coming, Father Abraham / James Sloan Gibbons (Robert Morris).
We are coming, father Abr'am,
three hundred thousand more,
From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore;
We leave our ploughs and workshops, our wives and children dear,
With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear.
We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before.---
We are coming, father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!
From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore;
We leave our ploughs and workshops, our wives and children dear,
With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear.
We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before.---
We are coming, father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!
We are coming, coming, our Union
to restore
We are coming, father Abr'am,
three hundred thousand more!
If you look across the
hill-tops, that meet the northern sky,
Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry;
And now the wind an instant tears the cloudy veil aside,
And floats aloft our spangled flag, in glory and in pride;
And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour.---
We are coming, father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!
Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry;
And now the wind an instant tears the cloudy veil aside,
And floats aloft our spangled flag, in glory and in pride;
And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour.---
We are coming, father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!
We are coming, coming, our Union
to restore
We are coming, father Abr'am,
three hundred thousand more!
If you look up our valleys,
where the growing harvest shine,
You may see our sturdy farmer boys, fast forming into line.
And children from their mothers' knees are pulling at the weeds,
And learning how to reap and sow, against their country's needs;
And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door.---
We are coming, father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!
You may see our sturdy farmer boys, fast forming into line.
And children from their mothers' knees are pulling at the weeds,
And learning how to reap and sow, against their country's needs;
And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door.---
We are coming, father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!
We are coming, coming, our Union
to restore
We are coming, father Abr'am,
three hundred thousand more!
You have called us, and we're
coming, by Richmond's bloody tide
To lay us down for freedom's sake, our brothers' bones-beside;
Or from foul treason's deadly grasp to wrench the murderous blade,
And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade,
Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone before,
We are coming, father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!
To lay us down for freedom's sake, our brothers' bones-beside;
Or from foul treason's deadly grasp to wrench the murderous blade,
And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade,
Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone before,
We are coming, father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!
We are coming, coming, our Union
to restore
We are coming, father Abr'am,
three hundred thousand more!
Amid the patriotic fever of the war meeting, and despite the uncertainty of leaving his 26-year-old wife, Nancy, and their nearly 4-year-old son James Norris Delaney Fleming, and 3-month-old son Amos Siegal Lincoln Fleming, William Fleming enlisted in the Union Army for 3 years.
