By Robert Lee Blankenship
Some wore a uniform of gray,
Some wore the one of blue,
They were brothers from north and south,
Some were sons and fathers too,
Each one was a soldier,
A warrior in a fight,
Now they are only ghost,
Seen by men with sight,
Once their feet did march,
Upon the battlefields grass,
Now they are just an image,
To be seen within the glass,
Many fell upon the field of battle,
Some alone in a place so foreign,
Now all that remains of them,
Is an image on a sheet of iron,
When I look into the eyes,
Of these men in iron or glass,
I see not a ghost,
But a man, a soldier from the past,
Though he now be only an image,
He was once a soldier that in battle fell,
And within each soldiers image,
Is held a story he longs to tell.
Robert Blankenship was born in Texas about 100 years after the American Civil War ended, and has an insatiable interest in the history and the photography of the period. He and his wife of 32 years live in Colorado Springs, Colo.
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