By Anthony G. D’Agnese
There was an Irish drummer boy
who beat a bold tattoo
upon the skins of battle
in the war of grey and blue.
His name was Michael Mullins.
His story ‘twas not new.
To find a home among the troops,
he joined the Union Blue.
By spring he’d seen some fighting
and bloodshed, I’ll tell you,
of friends and foes in battles
left as corpses for the dew.
But, one day late in summer
when foes together drew,
he watched his valiant company
reduced to thirty-two
What took the field was courage:
as bullets thick they flew,
the soldiers there could always hear
the drummer’s boy’s tattoo.
Amongst the dead and wounded,
he played the martial tune
for all his friends who died there,
whose bodies lay askew.
Tears coursed his cheeks for Clancy,
whose bright smile he once knew.
Some fell as well for Curran,
who’d helped to see him through.
As bullets mashed and mangled
the men who wore the blue,
young Michael never faltered
he stood there fast and true
and played his drum for freedom,
for friends: that, he could do.
When the battle it was over,
Victorious was the blue…
Some comrades came to comfort him
-he’d lost his friends, they knew.
But, Michael kept on beating
a somber, slow tattoo.
To this day that battlefield,
which death and courage knew,
hears echoes of a drumbeat
-the sound of Death’s Tattoo.
the echoes of a drumbeat
-the sound of Death’s Tattoo.