{"id":"01KG8AK0QKKW65MKXC1ATXAR43","cid":"bafkreidewydvmnaeoabo3xau3lqa7jzb7am34iu2ap6pr3y7coixsoflua","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":377,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:50.352Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J19Y3FNVN5KWASY78BP4","start_line":296,"text":"Ballasted Ap in his long sea-faring.\r\nThe middies they ducked to the man who had messed\r\nWith Decatur in the gun-room, or forward pressed\r\nFighting beside Perry, Hull, Porter, and the rest.\r\n\r\nHumped veteran o’ the Heart-o’-Oak war,\r\nMoored long in haven where the old heroes are,\r\nNever on _you_ did the iron-clads jar!\r\nYour open deck when the boarder assailed,\r\nThe frank old heroic hand-to-hand then availed.\r\n\r\nBut where’s Guert Gan? Still heads he the van?\r\nAs before Vera-Cruz, when he dashed splashing through\r\nThe blue rollers sunned, in his brave gold-and-blue,\r\nAnd, ere his cutter in keel took the strand,\r\nAloft waved his sword on the hostile land!\r\nWent up the cheering, the quick chanticleering;\r\nAll hands vying—all colors flying:\r\n“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” and “Row, boys, row!”\r\n“Hey, Starry Banner!” “Hi, Santa Anna!”\r\nOld Scott’s young dash at Mexico.\r\n\r\nFine forces o’ the land, fine forces o’ the sea,\r\nFleet, army, and flotilla—tell, heart o’ me,\r\nTell, if you can, whereaway now they be!\r\n\r\nBut ah, how to speak of the hurricane unchained—\r\nThe Union’s strands parted in the hawser over-strained;\r\nOur flag blown to shreds, anchors gone altogether—\r\nThe dashed fleet o’ States in Secession’s foul weather.\r\n\r\nLost in the smother o’ that wide public stress,\r\nIn hearts, private hearts, what ties there were snapped!\r\nTell, Hal—vouch, Will, o’ the ward-room mess,\r\nOn you how the riving thunder-bolt clapped.\r\nWith a bead in your eye and beads in your glass,\r\nAnd a grip o’ the flipper, it was part and pass:\r\n“Hal, must it be: Well, if come indeed the shock,\r\nTo North or to South, let the victory cleave,\r\nVaunt it he may on his dung-hill the cock,\r\nBut _Uncle Sam’s_ eagle never crow will, believe.”\r\n\r\nSentiment: ay, while suspended hung all,\r\nEre the guns against Sumter opened there the ball,\r\nAnd partners were taken, and the red dance began,\r\nWar’s red dance o’ death!—Well, we, to a man,\r\nWe sailors o’ the North, wife, how could we lag?—\r\nStrike with your kin, and you stick to the flag!\r\nBut to sailors o’ the South that easy way was barred.\r\nTo some, dame, believe (and I speak o’ what I know),\r\nWormwood the trial and the Uzzite’s black shard;\r\nAnd the faithfuller the heart, the crueller the throe.\r\nDuty? It pulled with more than one string,\r\nThis way and that, and anyhow a sting.\r\nThe flag and your kin, how be true unto both?\r\nIf either plight ye keep, then ye break the other troth.\r\nBut elect here they must, though the casuists were out;\r\nDecide—hurry up—and throttle every doubt.\r\n\r\nOf all these thrills thrilled at keelson, and throes,\r\nLittle felt the shoddyites a-toasting o’ their toes;\r\nIn mart and bazar Lucre chuckled the huzza,\r\nCoining the dollars in the bloody mint of war.\r\n\r\nBut in men, gray knights o’ the Order o’ Scars,\r\nAnd brave boys bound by vows unto Mars,\r\nNature grappled honor, intertwisting in the strife:—\r\nBut some cut the knot with a thoroughgoing knife.\r\nFor how when the drums beat? How in the fray\r\nIn Hampton Roads on the fine balmy day?\r\n\r\nThere a lull, wife, befell—drop o’ silent in the din.\r\nLet us enter that silence ere the belchings re-begin.\r\nThrough a ragged rift aslant in the cannonade’s smoke\r\nAn iron-clad reveals her repellent broadside\r\nBodily intact. But a frigate, all oak,\r\nShows honeycombed by shot, and her deck crimson-dyed.\r\nAnd a trumpet from port of the iron-clad hails,\r\nSummoning the other, whose flag never trails:\r\n“Surrender that frigate, Will! Surrender,\r\nOr I will sink her—_ram_, and end her!”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJF3ZZ701ZA41H31WZBPD","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19Y3FNVN5KWASY78BP4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK0QJG2RYS8W63FSCC3DR","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AK0QKXTJEYDGHK3F3SWNE","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:50.515Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:47:53.084Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}