Army of Northern Virginia, haggard and tattered, Tramping back on the pikes, through the dust-white summer, With your wounds still fresh, your burden of prisoners, Your burden of sick and wounded, “One long groan of human anguish six miles long.” You reach the swollen Potomac at long last, A foe behind, a risen river in front, And fording that swollen river, in the dim starlight, In the yellow and early dawn, Still have heart enough for the tall, long-striding soldiers To mock the short, half swept away by the stream. “Better change our name to Lee’s Waders, boys!” “Come on you shorty⁠—get a ride on my back.” “Aw, it’s just we ain’t had a bath in seven years And General Lee, he knows we need a good bath.”