A Memorial Day Poem: Our Federal Dead

[Draggingtree]

5

A Memorial Day Poem: Our Federal Dead

Jeff Giambrone

May 31, 2021 (8 Hours Ago)

In remembrance of Memorial Day I thought I would share the poem “Our Federal Dead,” written by Ellen Hebron of Amsterdam, Mississippi. While Ellen was very much a Southern girl, and a stalwart supporter of the Confederacy, she was also a devoted Christian, and her sympathy for the Federal soldiers who fought and died in the Vicksburg Campaign is very evident in these verses. It would have been easy for Ellen to hate Union soldiers; her brother, Jeremiah Ellington, died while serving in the 18th Mississippi Infantry, and her brother-in-law, George B. Hebron, an officer in the 21st Mississippi Infantry, was mortally wounded at the battle of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Her husband, John L. Hebron, survived the war, serving as a surgeon in the 2nd Arkansas Infantry, but his family’s orchards outside of Vicksburg, one of the largest commercial fruit growing operations in the South, were destroyed by Union troops during the Vicksburg Campaign.

But Ellen Hebron was not the kind of person to hold a grudge; when she published her first book of poetry it was dedicated “To The Good And The True, Wherever They May Be Found, Irrespective Of Age, Sex, Or Nationality;” and I believe that she did look for the best in everyone she met. Her poem “Our Federal Dead” was published in the December 28, 1877,    https://ricochet.com/969344/our-federal-dead/