James Sloan
Gibbons was a Hicksite Quaker living in New York City. At 20 he became active in the abolitionist
movement. Gibbons was best known for
writing about finances and banking, and had been the financial editor for the
New York Evening Post. When President
Abraham Lincoln called for an additional 300,000 men to join the Union Army, it
inspired Gibbons to write the song “We Are Coming, Father Abraham, Three
Hundred Thousand More”. The song was
published July 16th 1862 in the New York Evening Post. The song was used to help recruit Union
soldiers and became very popular.
“We
are coming, Father Abraham, 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 Abraham, 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 vail 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 Abraham, three hundred thousand more!
If
you look all up your valleys, where the growing harvests 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 Abraham, 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 brother's bones beside;
Or
from foul treason's savage group 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 Abraham, three hundred thousand more!
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