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44 Sharon D. Raynor In “The Warrior’s Prayer,” the phrase “strength for the fight” is repeated at the close of the second through fourth stanzas. The warrior is praying for the strength to endure the fight: “I do not ask that thou shalt front the fray / And drive the warring foeman from my sight / I only ask, O Lord, by night, by day / Strength for the fight.”66 This poem “written shortly before his death in 1906 identified the fight against racism as the critical battle when victory would bring not medals and parades but full citizenship.”67 Dunbar insinuates in the poem that he prays for the strength to fight multiple battles. He never specifically names the battles at Fort Pillow, Wagner, or Olustee, as he does in “The Colored Soldiers,” so his plea for courage could also be meant to be for the battles on the home front for civil liberties: freedom and citizenship. Black soldiers since the American Revolution had to fight on two fronts even after they assumed that their service would grant them freedoms that they had yet to experience. He closes the poem with four very powerful and poignant lines: “And when, at eventide, the fray is done / My soul to Death’s bedchamber do thou light / And give me, be the field lost or won / Rest from the fight.”68 The poem suggests that the soldiers were willing to fight until the bitter end, and regardless of whether the battle was lost or won, they would proudly accept their fates, even if their service took them to death’s door. The surviving black soldiers of these battles were merely seeking to become a part of democracy and enjoy full civil liberties as recognized and acknowledged citizens. According to Kai Wright, “By the war’s end, fully twelve percent of the Union’s forces were black. For many of these men, enlistment was not just an opportunity to fight for their own freedom; it was also a chance to immediately improve the lives of their families. They joined in search of housing, education, and income.”69 Their prayers would be answered when their civil liberties were granted to them. Their sacrifices were met by grave disappointment after the war ended, so their fight continued. The participation of those men who served and refused to be forgotten or erased from America’s collective memory in their own recognition was similar to Dunbar’s portrayals. Trudeau writes: May 31, 1897, brought the unveiling in Boston of a bronze-relief memorial created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, depicting Colonel Robert Shaw and twenty-three soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts. A contingent from the 54th did attend the unveiling ceremony, however, and the moment when they marched past the monument was said to be unforgettable, “They seemed to be returning from the war, the troops of bronze marching in the opposite direction, the direction in which they had left for the front, and the young men there represented now showing those veterans the vigor and hope of youth. It was a consecration.”70 Dunbar’s Mythic and Poetic Tribute to Black soldiers 45 Dunbar’s tribute poetry succeeds in fully honoring and recognizing those men who fought with the same great intent and courage as his father. In a letter that Colonel Shaw wrote to his mother before the Battle of Antietam Creek, he stated, “We fight for men and women whose poetry is not yet written.”71 Ironically, shortly afterward, Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, which began the freedom process for enslaved blacks. Despite the fact that many soldiers were captured, imprisoned, tortured, and killed by the Confederacy, their efforts were remembered as brave and courageous. After the Battle at Fort Wagner, a Christian worker who witnessed the arrival remembered: “The wounded of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts came off the boat first, and, as those sad evidences of bravery and patriotism of the colored man passed through the lines of spectators, every heart was melted with tenderness and pity. We will vouch for it . . . that no word of scorn or contempt for negro soldiers will ever be heard from any who beheld that spectacle.”72 Frederick Douglass stated, “In that terrible battle, under the wing of the night, more cavils in respect of the quality of Negro manhood were set at rest than could have been during a century of ordinary life and observation.”73 Their efforts in such historic battles persuaded the many who doubted...

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