Little Giffen
By
Francis Orray Ticknor (1822 - 1874)
The poem "Little Giffen" was written around 1865 by Francis Orray Ticknor. Ticknor was a doctor in a war-camp hospice when his wife discovered Isaac Newton Giffen on his deathbed. The Ticknors took "Little Giffen" home and nursed the near-death boy back to health. During his recuperation Mrs. Ticknor taught Giffen to read and write. Giffen was sixteen when he set out for war again. It must have been on one of the closing battles of the war that "Little Giffen" died.
Out of the focal and foremost fire,
Out of the hospital walls as dire,
Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene,
(Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen!)
Spectre! Such as you seldom see,
Little Giffen, of Tennessee.
"Take him- and welcome!" the surgeons said;
"Little the doctor can help the dead!"
So we took him and brought him where
The balm was sweet in the summer air;
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed-
Utter Lazarus, heel to head!
And we watched the war with abated breath-
Skeleton boy against skeleton death.
Months of torture, how many such!
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch;
And still a glint of the steel-blue eye
Told of a spirit that wouldn't die.
And didn't. Nay, more! In death's despite
The crippled skeleton learned to write.
"Dear Mother," at first, of course; and then
"Dear Captain," inquiring about the men.
Captain's answer: "Of eighty-and-five,
Giffen and I are left alive."
Word of gloom from the war, one day;
"Johnston pressed at the front, they say."
Little Giffen was up and away;
A tear-his first-as he bade good-by,
Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye.
"I'll write, if spared!" There was news of the fight;
But none of Giffen. He did not write.
I sometimes fancy that, were I king
Of the princely knights of the Golden Ring,
With the song of the minstrel in mine ear,
And the tender legend that trembles here,
I'd give the best on his bended knee,
The whitest soul of my chivalry,
For Little Giffen, of Tennessee.
This poem tells of just one part of the civil war that was so sad. The war against the states was not only fought by grown men, but by teenage boys, some as young as nine. This poem allows the reader to see the courage some boys had during the war, whether or not they were fighting for the North or South.
In the beginning, 16 year old Giffen is found in a hospice bruised and beaten. The phrase "Smitten of grape-shot and Gangrene" tells that he has been shot by a particular type of ammunition, grape-shot, and that he is near death. Surgeons tell the poets’ wife, Mrs. Ticknor, that she is welcome to take him and that he is a hopeless case. Mrs. Ticknor takes him to her home, "So we took him and brought where/The balm was sweet in the summer air" and care for him. Though he is near death, Giffen recuperates back to health with "a spirit that wouldn’t die." In his time of staying with the Ticknors, Giffen learns to write. He sends a letter to his mother and writes to his captain on the events of the war. Soon, Giffen leaves the home of the Ticknors and bades them good-bye. He is off to help fight and with a last good-bye to the Ticknors he says he will write if he is still alive, but they never hear from him.
This poem has a lot of imagery. "The balm was sweet in the summer air… And still a glint in the steel-blue eye." The reader can smell the sweet summer air and see the blue eyes of Little Giffen in their minds-eye. In the passage "Skeleton boy against skeleton death," the reader can picture a small boy with a gaunt face and pale complexion. With the passage "Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene" I myself envision a person who is bloody and mangled from an encounter in war. I believe that the poet used imagery to show people the horrors of war, but to also show them that there was hope in the smallest of packages.
In some parts of the poem, Ticknor uses alliteration. "Out of the focal and foremost fire…Spectre! Such as you seldom see." The alliteration is in no particular pattern; that is why I believe it has no important part in the meaning of the poem.
The tone and mood of this story is intermixed. I believe that that the tone and mood is sorrowful, but with a small amount of hope and joy in it. "I’d give the best on his bended knee/The whitest soul of my chivalry/For Little Giffen, of Tennessee" leaves the reader with a feeling that even though Giffen is dead, he will be remembered.
This is my Civil War poem. It is not written about any specific event in the Civil War and there are no people in this poem that actually fought in that war. It is all made up based on my ideas. It does portray, however, what I believe the men who fought in the war felt as they readied themselves for battle, regardless of what side they fought on.
It was a hot and dry summer day,
The middle of war in June.
The soldiers lined up, weapons in hand,
Waiting for the first cannon boom.
The Captain said, "Men, today is the day
When we show where our priorities lie.
You make the choice to march out and fight,
Perhaps you even will die.
My poem starts out with the last moments of a regiment of men, just before a small battle comes upon them. If you look carefully you may notice that the men are Southerners with the enemy coming over the hill to strike, as the South fought a mostly defensive war. I choose the Confederates for a unique point of view. I wanted people to notice that they were just as scared and tired and brave as the North. As the enemy comes over the hill to attack, the captain encourages the men, ' "Men, today is the day/When we show where our priorities lie." ' A lookout informs the other soldiers to prepare themselves, so they mumble "prayers and curses alike." When people read the last stanza I want them to think seriously about the question I pose, "Who created the idea of war?"
I used imagery in my poem to paint a verbal picture. In the line "Their rifles all shiny and clean," I wanted the reader to imagine the gleam on the rifles of the soldiers as they stand in position. In the line "Their clothes all covered with dirt and decay," I wanted the reader to be able to imagine the soldiers in clothing stained with caked-on mud and the blood from dead comrades.
I also planned to use a rhyme scheme for my poem. With most of the poems that I write, my rhyme scheme is A, B, C, B. This is the most comfortable rhyme scheme for me. As you can see, it fits in very well for every stanza.