How here, at one dot, McClellan might have wrung A victory, perhaps, with his larger force, And there, on the other hand, played canny and well; How Jackson, for once, moved slowly, how Porter held, And the bitter, exhausted wrestling of Malvern Hill. What we know is this. The host from the ships went back, Hurt but not broken, hammered but undestroyed, To find a new base far up the crook of the James And rest there, panting. Lincoln and Halleck come. The gaunt, plain face is deeper furrowed than ever, The eyes are strained with looking at books of tactics And trying to understand. There is so much For one man to understand, so many lies, So much half-truth, so many counselling voices, So much death to be sown and reaped and still no end. The dead of the Seven Days. The four months dead Boy who used to play with a doll named Jack, Was a bright boy as boys are reckoned and now is dead. The doll named Jack was sometimes a Union soldier, Sometimes a spy. The boy and his brother held