We Are Coming Father Abraham, 300,000 Strong

In the summer of 1862, things were not going as well as it could have for the United States military. The Army of the Potomac was being battered away from Richmond by Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia as June turned to July. In the western theater, a Union victory at Shiloh in April soon gave them the vital railroad crossroads at Corinth, Mississippi, but relative stalemate followed.

Unwilling to enlist African Americans just yet, the Federal government through President Lincoln issued a call for 300,000 more white soldiers to put down the Confederate rebellion. To encourage men to sign up and fight in order to reunify the nation, James S. Gibbons wrote a poem, "We re Coming Father Abra'am."

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more,

From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore.

We leave our plows and workshops, our wives and children dear,

With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear.

We dare not look behind us but steadfastly before.

We are coming Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

We are coming, coming, our Union to restore,

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

If you look across the hilltops that meet the northern sky,

Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry;

And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil aside,

And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride;

And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour,

We are coming, father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!

We are coming, coming, our Union to restore,

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

If you look up all our valleys where the growing harvests shine, 

You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into line;

And children from their mother's knees are pulling at the weeds, 

And learning to reap and sow against their country's needs;

And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door,

We are coming, Father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!

We are coming, coming, our Union to restore,

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

You have called us, and we're coming by Richmond's bloody tide,

To lay us down for freedom's sake, our brothers' bones beside;

Or from foul treason's savage grip, to wrench the murderous blade;

And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade.

Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone before, 

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

We are coming, coming, our Union to restore,

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

The poem was a hit, and it soon was put to music by a host of composers including the famous Stephen Collins Foster. The appeal proved successful and these 300,000 men plus more, eventually along with black troops, helped win the war.