Names from the War is a long poem about theAmerican Civil War by Civil War historianBruce Catton, published in 1960.[1] The context is theCivil War Centennial. It was set to music byAlec Wilder, using folk melodies fromCarl Sandburg'sAmerican Songbook. It calls for narrator, chorus, brass quintet, and woodwind quintet. It was released onLP in 1961, withDave Garroway as the narrator. It has apparently never been performed in a concert setting.[2]
In it, Catton talks about "quiet names of doom", which previously had no special significance, but now "they will live as long as America remembers.". These are names—Sharpsburg andSpotsylvania begin the list—from postmarks on envelopes containing letters soldiers sent to their families, although sometimes the names arrived on official death notices before the letters did. Geographical names like "Missionary Ridge" were not postmarks. Others, likeBloody Lane, were coined by the soldiers themselves. There are names of churches—Shiloh,New Hope—, names of houses people lived in, and finally "the haunted road that led pastSailor's Creek toAppomattox".
Now the agony is gone, those who grieved are now dead themselves, the "bitterness and hot bewildered fury" have faded. What remains are the names: they still clang when we touch them. "What America is grew out of them."