To Perpetuate
the glory of the brave men of the
19th Illinois,
and their companions in arms who fell at
Murfreesburo [North Carolina].
"Who'll Save the Left?" (1863)
A Battle Scene
Words by R. Tompkins,
Music by George Frederick Root

[Recitando]
Thro' two long days the battle raged
In front of Murfreesburo
And cannon balls tore up the earth
As plows turn up the furrow
Brave soldiers by the hundred fell
In fierce assault and sally
While bursting shell hiss'd scream'd and fell
Like demons in the valley
The Northman, and the Southron met,
In bold defiant manner,
Now vict'ry perch'd on Union flag,
And now on rebel banner;
Bur see! upon the Union's left,
Bear down in countless numbers,
With shouts that seem to wake the hills
From their eternal slumbers,
The rebel hosts, whose iron rain
Beats down our weaker forces,
And covers all the battle plain
With torn and mangled cor[p]ses;
Still onward press the rebel hordes
More boldly, fiercer, faster,
But Negley's practiced eye discerns
The swift and dread disaster,
"Who'll save the left," his voice rang out
Above the roar of battle,
"The Nineteenth" shouted Colonel Scott,
Amid the muskets rattle
"The Nineteenth be it,
Make it charge!"
Quick as the word was given,
The Nineteenth fell up[-]on the foe,
As lightning falls from heaven.

[Con fuoco]
Over the stream they went, into the fight,
Cutting their way on the left and the right,
Unheeding the storm of the shot and the shell,
Unheeding the fate of their comrades who fell,
Onward they sped like the fierce lightning[']s flash,
Onward they sped with a tornado's crash
Onward they sped like the bolts of the thunder
Resistlessly crushing the rebel hosts under
'Till wild in their terror they scatter'd and fled,
Leaving heaps upon heaps, of their dying and dead;
And the shout that went up with the set of the sun,
Told the charge was triumphant, the great battle won;
Told the charge was triumphant, the great battle won.