The Ghost of Sweetgrass Field
A Southern Tale

by Angela L Burke

Once there was a field of sweetgrass,
Where a lonely oak tree stood.
And underneath it's branches,
Stood a picket fence of wood.
The gate had long been missing.
It's paint had chipped away.
Four, tiny headstones stood there,
Where three babes and mama lay.

A little girl, named Bonnie,
A little girl, named Sue,
And a little babe, named Emily.
She lived nine months, past age two.
The three little ones, were sisters.
They died on the same day,
In the year of 1863,
The seventeenth of May.

The story was, their Papa,
Had gone away to fight.
And their Mama, she had begged him,
Not to go, with all her might.
He kissed each one on the forehead,
He kissed Mama on the lips.
He said "' I'll be back in no time....
It'll be a real short trip."

' I'll be here beside you
before you can blink an eye.
This war won't last six months...I bet.
Be big girls and don't cry! "
But, their Papa never came back
And they never, heard a word.
Their Mama, she was left alone,
 Trying to raise her three, small girls.

Times were tough in those days.
There were theives at every turn.
And what those Yankees didn't steal,
They'd turn around and burn.
A trigger happy soldier,
Shot Mama in the chest,
When they tried to burn her house down,
And she tried strongly too protest.

And her three little angels
Hiding underneath the bed,
Were trapped by blinding smoke
And met their tragic deaths.
Their tiny little bodies
Were placed in Sweetgrass Field,
By the same ,Yankee Soldier
Whom, their Mother, he had killed.

Claimed, he hadn't meant no killin,
Claimed, he only meant to warn her.
But when he heard those children scream,
Guilt tore his heart asunder.
So he built a pickett fence,
In a square around their beds.
And he planted a little, oak tree,
For some shade above their heads.

He was found in Sweetgrass Field
With a bullet in his head.
Rumor has it , he's the one
Who walks among the dead.
They say,  he guards the graveyard,
As penance for his sins.
In hope, that maybe someday,
God will forgive and let him in.

You can see him in the moonlight,
Walking with his head hung low.
He cannot leave their graveside.
He has no where to go.
So, until the Day of Judgement,
Too his punishment, he yeilds.
That's how I recollect the story of,
 The Ghost of Sweetgrass Field.