<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap">xt7rjd4pkj54 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7rjd4pkj54/data/mets.xml Ranck, George Washington, 1841-1900. 1898  books b92-45-26783951 English Grafton Press, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. O'Hara, Theodore, 1820-1867. Bivouac of the dead and its author / by George W. Ranck. text Bivouac of the dead and its author / by George W. Ranck. 1898 2002 true xt7rjd4pkj54 section xt7rjd4pkj54 


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                   -

 
THE


BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


            AND ITS AUTHOR


                  BY

         GEORGE. W.Y RANCK
Author of "Fistcry of L'exiigtos, Ky.,`-' 'Grty, the White
   Indian;' "The Travelling Church," "The Sto-y
           of Bryan's qtatioi," etc.


  ILL USTRA TED


THE GRAFTON PRESS


PUBLISHERS


NEW YORK


52374

 
  Cor-ONGT, 1898i,

fit OEt6K W. RSN4C

 
       TO ONE


WHOSE LIFE WAS A POEM


  THIS LITTLE VOLUME


     IS INSCRIBED

 
           ILLUSTRATIONS.

PORTRAIT OF THEODORE O'HARA, Frontispiece.

AND GLORY GUARDS WITH SOLEMMN
   ROUND, THE BIVOUAC OF THE
   DEAD, - - -  - - - -   Facing page 7

STATE MILITARY MONUMENT AT
   FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY, - -    "   13

PORTRAIT OF DANIEL BOONE, - -  "   17

THE BOONE MONUMENT,   - - -     "   20

 
             CONTENTS.
                                   PAGE

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD,-         - 7


THE OLD PIONEER, -. . . . . .     .17

"THE SOUND Ot A VOICE THAT IS STILL," - 22

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD AND ITS AUTHOR, 23
   BY GEORGE W. RANCK.

 
Frui-, design by George W. Ra.-k.

         'AND GLORY GUARDS WITH SOLEMN ROUND
            THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD."


THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.


T    HE muffled drum's sad roll has beat

      The soldier's last tattoo;

 No more onr life's parade shall meet

    The brave and daring few.

 On Fame's eternal camping-ground

    Their silent tents are spread,

 And Glory guards with solemn round

    The bivouac of the dead.
                              (7)

 
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


N    O  rumor of the foe's advance

        Now swells upon the wind;

No troubled thought at midnight haunts

   Of.lgVed 6nes ieft'. beiii4;:

No vision of the nlOrrow's stvife
           ... ..x.. .
   The warrior's dre"am alarms;

No braying horn nor screaming fife

   At dawn shall call to arms.


8

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


T    HEIR shivered swords are red

         with rust,

   Their plumed heads are bowed;

Their haughty banner trailed in dust

   Is now their martial shroud,

And plenteous funeral tears have washed

   The red stains from each brow,

And their proud forms in battle gashed

   Are free from anguish now.


9

 
10       THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


      HE neighing steed, the flashing

  T     blade,

  The trumpet's stirring blast,

The charge, the dreadful cannonade,

   The din and shout are past;

No war's wild note, nor glory's peal,

   Shall thrill with fierce delight

Those breasts that never more shall feel

    The rapture of the fight.


T
11

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


L    IKE the dread northern hurricane

      That sweeps his broad plateau,

Flushed with the triumph yet to gain

   Came down the serried foe;

Our heroes felt the shock, and leapt

   To meet them on the plain;

And long the pitying sky hath wept

   Above our gallant slain.


I I

 
12      THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


    ONS of our consecrated ground,

SJ Ye must not slumber there,

Where stranger steps and tongues resound

   Along the heedless air.

Your own proud land's heroic soil

   Shall be your fitter grave;

She claims from War his richest spoil-

   The ashes of her brave.

 This page in the original text is blank.

 
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AND ITS AUTHOR.


S     O  'neath their parent turf they rest,

      Far from the gory field;

Borne to a Spartan mother's breast

   On many a bloody shield;

The sunshine of their native sky

   Smiles sadly on them here,

And kindred hearts and eyes watch by

   The heroes' sepulcher.


i
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13

 
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


R    EST on, embalmed and sainted

         dead!

   Dear as the blood you gave,

No impious footsteps here shall tread

   The herbage of your grave;

Nor shall your glory be forgot

   While Fame her record keeps,

Or Honor points the hallowed spot

   Where Valor proudly sleeps.


14

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


Y    ON marble minstrel's voiceless

         stone

   In deathless songs shall tell,

When many a vanished age hath flown,

   The story how ye fell;

Nor wreck, nor change, or winter's blight

   Nor Time's remorseless doom,

Shall dim one ray of holy light

   That gilds your glorious tomb.


15

 
From origital-by Chester Hard ig.

 
       THE OLD PIONEER.


A  DIRGE for the brave old pioneer!
     Knight-errant of the wood!
  Calmly beneath the green sod here,
      He rests from field and flood;
  The war-whoop and the panther's screams
      No more his soul shall rouse,
  For well the aged hunter dreams
      Beside his good old spouse.

 A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
      Hushed now his rifle's peal-
 The dews of many a vanish'd year
      Are on his rusted steel:
  His horn and pouch lie moldering
      Upon the cabin door-
 The elk rests by the salted spring,
      Nor flees the fierce wild boar.
                                   (x7)

 
x8     THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
    Old Druid of the West!
His offering was the fleet wild deer,
    His shrine the mountain's crest.
Within his wildwood temple's space
    An empire's towers nod,
Where erst, alone of all his race,
    He knelt to nature's God.


A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
    Columbus of the land!
Who guided freedom's proud career
    Beyond the conquer'd strand;
And gave her pilgrim sons a home
    No monarch's step profanes,
Free as the chainless winds that roam
    Upon its boundless plains.

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
    The muffled drum resound!
A warrior is slumb'ring here
    Beneath his battle ground.
For not alone with beast of prey
    The bloody strife he waged,
Foremost where'er the deadly fray
    Of savage combat raged.


A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
    A dirge for his old spouse!
For her who blest his forest cheer,
    And kept his birchen house.
Now soundly by her chieftain may
    The brave old dame sleep on,
The red man's step is far away,
    The wolf's dread howl is gone.


I9

 
20     THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


     A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
          His pilgrimage is done;
     He hunts no more the grizzly bear
          About the setting sun.
     Weary at last of chase and life
          He laid him here to rest,
     Nor recks he now what sport or strife
         Would tempt him further West.


     A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
         The patriarch of his tribe!
     He sleeps, no pompous pile marks where,
         No lines his deeds describe.
     They raised no stone above him here,
         Nor carved his deathless name-
     An Empire is his sepulcher,
         His epitaph is Fame.
  This poem was written before the Boone monument was
erected.

 
THE BOONE MONUMENT IN THE CEMETERV AT FRANKFORT, Ky.


t- I


PI

 This page in the original text is blank.

 
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD
    AND ITS AUTHOR

 
"THE SOUND OF A VOICE THAT IS STILL."


    The author of this little volume is doubly obli-
gated now to publish the following lines, for the
writer of them has passed from earth. She was a
sister of Theodore O'Hara, wonderfully like him in
both scholarly and poetic endowments, and ever
watchful of his fame. The extract is from a letter
written by her after she had placed all the poet's
papers in the author's hands. It is as follows:

         "Near FRANKFORT, Ky., Aug. iS' 1875.

And in conclusion, I have one request to make.
When you publish your tribute to my brother The-
odore, say that it is accompanied not only by the
entire indorsement of his family, but by their
warmest gratitude and love, for you have done more
than all others to cause his poems to be properly
appreciated, and you of all the world moved his
fellow-citizens to that sacred act-the bringing home
of those dear remains. You will comply with my
request, for it is a sacred one, and besides you would
not have us to appear ungrateful.
              As ever your friend,
                       MARY O'HARA PRICE.
Mr. George W. Ranck,
            Lexington, Ky.
   (22)

 
  THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD AND
               ITS AUTHOR.

           By GEORGE W. RANCK.

  The rise, so to speak, of " The Bivouac of
the Dead," the greatest martial elegy in exist-
ence, is one of the unique things in literature.
The poem marched to the front in detachments.
Quotations from it became famous long before
the lyric itself was familiar and even now,
when it is taking its own exalted place, but
little is known either of its author or the story
of his poem.
  This article is intended to supply these
deficiencies, and it will be a satisfaction to the
                                     (23)

 
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


reader of it to know that its facts were mainly
obtained from papers and documents placed in
the hands of the writer, and in his hands only,
by the family of the poet himself.


     EARLY DAYS IN THE BLUE GRASS.

  Theodore O'Hara, author of " The Bivouac
of the Dead," was born on the i ith of Febru-
ary, 1820, in the college town of Danville,
Kentucky, where his father, Kane O'Hara,
one of the best equipped of the early teachers
of the commonwealth, conducted an academy.
The father of the poet was an Irish gentleman
and had received a collegiate training which
turned out to be his most valuable possession.
He had been a fellow rebel with Lord Edward
Fitzgerald, in the Irish uprising of 1798, and
when that chivalrous but illfated nobleman was
betrayed, Kane O'Hara escaped to America,


24

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


bringing little with him but his education,
which he put at once to practical use. He
settled in Kentucky as a teacher, and lived and
died distinguished for his superiority in that
profession.
  The maternal ancestors of the poet, who
were Irish also, had emigrated to this country
long before, with Lord Baltimore, rather than
endure the disabilities then imposed upon
Roman Catholics in their unhappy land.
While Theodore O'Hara was still an infant, the
family removed from Danville to a farm on the
Elkhorn in Woodford county, and there in the
heart of the famous Blue Grass Region, the
scholarly father commenced himself the educa-
tion of his children. They all subsequently
settled in Frankfort, the capital of the state
which became their permanent residence.
  A characteristic of the early childhood of


25

 
26     THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


Theodore O'Hara was his engrossing love for
heroic verse, great deeds embalmed in song,
which he seemed to absorb intuitively and to
recite as the natural outpourings of his heart.
His feats in this line excited the admiration of
his old country kin, when the little lad was
once taken by his father across the ocean to
see them. They would call in the neighbors,
mount him on a table, and loudly applaud his
efforts as a reciter of stirring lays. This gift,
which made him the delight of many a circle,
he retained to the end of his life.
  With Theodore O'Hara study was not the
task, but the passion of his childhood, and
fortunately he was trained by one who under-
stood his nature. His education was conducted
entirely by his father, until he went to St.
Josephs, a Roman Catholic College at Bards-
town, Kentucky, and then his loving teacher

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


had so thoroughly done his work that he was
prepared to enter the senior class in all but
the higher mathematics, which he mastered in
a few weeks. He left the college genuinely
accomplished as a scholar, especially in the
ancient and modern classics, and after the
compliment had been paid him of election,
youth as he was, to the professorship of the
Greek language. An admirer who was present
when he made his graduating address has said:
"It was the most perfect thing of its kind I
ever heard, for elegance of style, depth of
thought, truthfulness of sentiment, and beauty
of composition." At nineteen he was studying
law in the office of Judge Owsley, where he
was a fellow-student of John C. Breckinridge,
and the strong attachment there formed con-
tinued unbroken to the end.


27

 
28     THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


          A POET AND A SOLDIER.
  In i842, the handsome and scholarly young
O'Hara was admitted to the bar, and for a
short time he practiced law, or rather, as
another scholar and poet said of himself, " he
followed the law, he never could overtake it,"
for the restlessness of an adventurous nature,
and a passion for the heroic and beautiful,
warred against the substantial requirements of
his profession. Inclined to meditations tinged
with sadness, he spent many a thoughtful hour
amid the soothing solitude of the Frankfort
Cemetery, which suited just such a soul as his,
for it is embowered in loveliness, crowns a height
that is surpassingly picturesque, and commands
a view fine enough to tempt the pencil of a
master. Here, on the i3th of September, 1845,
he witnessed the impressive re-interment of

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


Daniel Boone, and Rebecca, his wife. They
were buried in a singularly romantic and ap-
propriate spot, on the rugged summit of a cliff
which overhangs the historic river which the
world's most famous woodsman, solitary and
alone, had seen in all its primeval beauty, and
with which his name will be associated forever.
Sitting that same autumn by the two mounds
there made, and before the state had erected
over them the marble memorial, now canopied
by giant trees, O'Hara wrote his first known
poem, "The Old Pioneer."   He had sought
to be a lawyer when he was already a poet.
But both poetry and law had to succumb to
the pressure of a narrow fortune, and a few
weeks after this O'Hara was glad to accept a
position in the Treasury department at Wash-
ington. From that time his life was over-
shadowed by the same dark clouds of misfor-


29

 
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


tune and disappointment, that seem so strangely
to hang round the pathway of genius. The
next year, I846, when the Mexican War broke
out, he promptly volunteered and was appointed
Captain. He fought at Contreras, was badly
wounded at Cherubusco, where he was bre-
vetted for gallant and meritorius conduct, and
was himself a witness in the land of the cactus,
of all of arms, of glory, and of heroic death,
that he soon depicted in verse. Brilliant and
jovial, he was the life of many a camp fire, but
it is evident that his poetic fancy was none the
less revolving stirring but melancholy thoughts.
He loved to repeat the then newly published
Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, which were
animated with a spirit so like his own, and his
comrades never forgot the look of his face nor
the sound of his voice, when at their request
he gave them " Edinburgh After Flodden," or


30

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


" The Burial March of Dundee," inspiring the
sounding sentences with the very scream of the
bag-pipe and the roll of the drum. On the
20th of July, 1847, while O'Hara was still in
Mexico, the Commonwealth of Kentucky gave
her soldiers who had fallen at Buena Vista, and
had been buried upon the battle field, a great
public funeral at her capital, and McKee, and
Clay, and Vaughn, and Carty, and all "the
brave and daring few," were re-interred on a
commanding site provided by the state, in the
Frankfort Cemetery, and public sentiment, in
advance of the Legislature, decided that an
appropriate monument should mark the spot.
It was in the fall of this year, while the war
enthusiasm was high in Kentucky, and shortly
after O'Hara had returned to Frankfort with
wounds and honors gained at Cherubusco, that
he wrote "The Bivouac of the Dead." The


31

 
32     THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


poem was suggested by the sight of the graves
of his comrades of Buena Vista, and the first
rough draft of it was written while he sat near
them, resting after one of his strolls through
the Cemetery which he frequented more than
ever during his convalescence. It was written
with a view to its use at a possible dedication
of the contemplated soldier's monument which
is referred to in the poem under the exquisite
guise of a "marble minstrel," and which was
duly completed and erected, June 25, i850.
The happy accordance of time, place and cir-
cumstances with the writer and the writing of
"The Bivouac of the Dead," is one of the
most unique and striking things in literature.
It is doubtful if a poem was ever written more
in harmony with the eternal fitness of things.

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


        WITH THE CHARGING LINES.

  The close of the Mexican War left O'Hara
enriched only in reputation. He returned to
Washington City and again attempted the
practice of law, but soon abandoned it and
was an editorial writer for the Frankfort Yeo-
man, when with many other adventurous spirits
he was induced to embark in the Cuban Expe-
dition of i850, in which he ranked as Colonel
and was second in command to General Lopez.
The short and mournful story of that invasion,
its collapse, the execution of Lopez, and the
tragic death of his brave Kentuckians, will not
be soon forgotten. O'Hara fought gallantly
but was stricken down by a bullet, carried
helpless on board a vessel of the expedition,
and was fortunate enough to escape to the
United States. A few years later, undaunted


33

 
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


by this experience, he figured for a short time
in Walker's Expedition to Nicaragua. In 1854,
when the remains of the distinguished William
T. Barry, of Kentucky, arrived from Europe
and were re-interred in the State Cemetery at
Frankfort, O'Hara delivered the funeral oration,
but though he was gifted as a speaker, he
rarely figured as such, and this oration is one
of the very few specimens extant, of his ability
in this line. It exhibits no little of the same
glowing language and lofty sentiment that
characterizes his poetry. In i855, O'Hara was
appointed Captain in the famous Second Cav-
alry of the regular army, a regiment pre-eminent
for the astonishing number of general officers
it furnished later on, to the Federal and Con-
federate armies. Robert E. Lee, George H.
Thomas, Albert Sidney Johnston, Stoneman,
Hood, and Kirby Smith, forming part of the


34

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


illustrious list. The friendship that now sprung
up between O'Hara and the Kentucky Colonel
of the regiment, Albert Sidney Johnston, was
afterwards touchingly illustrated on the then
undreamed-of field of Shiloh. The regiment
was ordered to Texas to keep depredating
Indians in check, and O'Hara's company was
stationed for a time on the Clear Fork of the
Brazos, where the monotony was seldom
seriously interrupted. Once indeed there was
an adventure. Shortly after his arrival, and
while going with a party to Fort Mason, some
buffaloes thundered across his front, and in the
excitement of the moment he dashed off across
the prairie after one of them, and was out
of sight of his companions before he realized
that some one else was after the same animal.
It was a Comanche Indian, who, like himself,
had been so carried away by the sportsman's


35

 
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


passion, as to forget that he was on the war-
path. A fellow-feeling made them bury the
hatchet for that particular occasion, and to-
gether they killed the buffalo, instead of each
other, O'Hara leaving his share of the game to
the watchful savage, while he made his way
back to his companions with a whole scalp.
But garrison life was too dull for the nervous
and high-strung nature of O'Hara. He soon
resigned and betook himself again to journal-
ism, in which his literary and scholarly attain-
ments, and his political knowledge, were
always wielded with especial brilliancy. In
fact so much of O'Hara's time was given up
to newspaper work, that it may be said of him
that when he was not a soldier he was an editor.
During the absence of the able John Forsythe
as minister to Mexico, in 1857 and i858, and
up to the beginning of the late war between


36

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


the states, O'Hara was editor of the Mobile
Register. In this capacity, while the clouds of
sectional strife were gathering so rapidly, he
not only devoted his pen to the defense of the
land and the people he loved so well, but
dedicated his sword to their service also. In
November, i86o, nearly a month before the
secession of South Carolina, he raised and
commanded the Mobile Light Dragoons, which,
it is claimed, was the first military company
formed in the South, with reference to the
probability of war. In January, i86i, O'Hara
took command of a few volunteers he had
gathered in less than a day, hurried them over
to Pensacola harbor, and seized Fort Barancas
and put the dilapidated old work in as good
condition as circumstances would permit. The
following July he was appointed Lieutenant
Colonel of the Twelfth Alabama Regiment of


37

 
38     THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


Infantry, formed in Richmond of companies
that had quickly arrived from Alabama, and
had tendered their services separately to the
Confederate Government. The Colonelcy of
the regiment was given to Robert T. Jones, of
Alabama, a graduate of West Point, and who
afterwards fell, while gallantly fighting at Seven
Pines. Some weeks after the formation of the
Twelfth, and while the work of military organiza-
tion was going on, Colonel Jones was appointed
to the command of another regiment, and
O'Hara was promoted to the vacant Colonelcy.
Colonel Jones was however soon re-appointed
to his old position, while O'Hara was trans-
ferred, with the rank of Colonel, to the West.
There he served on the staff of that great
soldier, Albert Sidney Johnston, stemmed with
him the fiery flood of Shiloh, and received his
beloved chief in his arms, when he fell upon

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


that -nsanguined field. A few weeks later he
shared in the Seven Days Battles before Rich-
mond, after which he was chief of staff to
General John C. Breckinridge, participating
with him in the terrible struggle at Stone River,
in the defense of Jackson, Miss., and in many
a hard fought campaign. True to the last to
the friend of his youth, he shared with him
the bitterness of those last bitter days, when
one of the grandest dreams of modern times
dissolved, and never left him until he had
reached Florida, en route to a foreign land.


      THE GOLDEN BOWL IS BROKEN.

  The close of this war also found O'Hara with-
out a dollar, but like thousands who had fought
with him, he set at once to work in the very
midst of the heart-breaking ruins of his people
and  his hopes.   He went to Columbus,


39

 
40     THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


Georgia, and engaged in the cotton business
with a relative, but misfortune again overtook
him, for he and his partner lost all by fire.
Undismayed, he retired to a plantation a few
miles distant, on the Alabama side of the
Chattahoochie, near Guerryton, and was there
laboring successfully, when he was attacked by
bilious fever, of which he died, on Friday,
June 6, i867. His latest hours were cheered
by the affectionate attentions of devoted
relatives and friends, the final sacrament of his
church was administered, and while the warm
southern breeze rustled the leaves of the
cotton he had watched, and brought to him
the fragrance of the jessamine he loved, the
worn and weary soldier-poet fell asleep. He
was buried in Columbus, Georgia, and there
remained until the state upon which his genius
had been reflected, claimed his ashes. In the

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


summer of i874, in accordance with a resolu-
tion of the Kentucky Legislature, all that was
mortal of the poet was brought to Frankfort,
and on the 15th of September of that year,
his remains, together with those of Governors
Greenup and Madison, and several distin-
guished officers of the Mexican War, were
re-interred there, and he slept at last in that
cemetery which had always had for him so
great a charm, and which his poems and his
grave will make celebrated. The final tribute
was paid by mourning relatives, by state troops,
and comrades of two wars, by the Governor
and officers of the Commonwealth, and by a
throng of sorrowing admirers. The solemn
boom of the minute gun, and the "sad roll"
of " the muffled drum," mingled with the funeral
dirge, and the shadow of the tattered banner
under which he had fought on "Angostura's


41

 
42     THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


bloody plains," rested silently and lovingly
upon his bier. And so he was carried along the
rugged winding way that he had often trod, up to
the monumental hill top, where time and again
he had watched the exquisite landscape at the
glorious setting of the sun, and on under the
white extended arms of the familiar sycamores
and beneath the sadly drooping foliage of the
weeping willows, to the hallowed spot where a
stately shaft of emblazoned marble towered to
the memory of the departed Soldiers of the
Commonwealth, whose-
      "Silent tents are spread
      On Fame's eternal camping ground."

  And there he was buried. His grave was
strewn with flowers, and over it the attendant
companies of the State Guard fired the farewell
volleys of musketry, and the solemn obsequies
at the cemetery ended. Later in the day a

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


funeral oration was delivered by General Will-
iam Preston, and The Bivouac of the Dead
was read by H. T. Stanton.
  A white marble slab, simple but artistic, now
covers the ashes of O'Hara. It rises but a few
feet above the blue grass, and bears upon its
sloping surface the suggestive and appropriate
design of a sword and scabbard crossed and
surmounted by a wreath of laurel and oak, and
beneath it the legend-

            THEODORE O'HARA,
            MAJOR AND A. D. C.
            DIED JUNE 6, 1867.

  The inscription is conspicuous for what it
omits, as O'Hara was a Colonel, and will be
remembered as a poet. Let us hope that an
appreciative legislature, with a view to the en-
couragement of literature, and in justice both
to Kentucky's greatest poet, and to the heroes


43

 
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


he commemorated, will rectify this and other
omissions akin to it. Let us hope that very
soon the space under the crossed swords will
hold nothing but the short and eloquent
sentence-
            THEODORE O'HARA,
                 Author of
        THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.

  That the stately column he heralded will be
inscribed with his most famous quatrain, and
that an unmutilated monument to Boone will
catch glints of beauty from " The Old Pioneer."
Surely at the home and last resting-place of
O'Hara one should be reminded of his poems,
as much as at national cemeteries and foreign
battle-fields.

            How LOOKED HE

  Colonel O'Hara was handsome and always
looked the soldier that he was. He was a


44

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


little over five feet eight inches in height,
slender, graceful, very erect in his carriage, and
scrupulously neat in his dress. He had a fine
head and almost classic features, but his dark
hair was always thin, and by the time he had
attained middle life, the front of his head had
become somewhat bald. His eyes, which were
dark hazel, and full of fire and expression,
attracted especial attention. and were not
easily forgotten. Though sensitive, refined
and retiring, and inclined to reflection toned
with sadness, he was daring, alert and decided
in the field, where, to use the words of one of
his soldiers, " his knightly bearing, flashing eye
and quick magnetic tone of command, inspired
his men with ardor." in a chosen circle of
friends he was a lively companion, conspicuous
for good fellowship, happy social gifts, and
brilliant conversational powers, and for his


45

 
46     THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


impulsive, but warm and generous heart.
Attractive as he was, he never married, he
lived and died a bachelor, and that fact, and
the changes and requirements of a military
life, largely account for the scarcity of personal
mementoes of him. A picture of him, taken
after his return from the Cuban Expedition,
still exists, a copy of which is herewith pre-
sented, his sword is in the possession of the
State of Kentucky, and his autograph is owned
by the writer. His portfolio containing many
of his articles, both printed and in manuscript,
was lost in the confusion that marked the end-
ing of the late war between the states, so that
we will never certainly know how much he had
written, either of poetry or of prose.

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


       PERFECTING His MASTERPIECE.

  Modest as O'Hara was, it is evident that he
was not unconscious of the merits of his
masterpiece, from the efforts he made to perfect
it. He corrected it as often as Gray corrected
his famous Elegy, and twice he changed it as
radically as Poe changed his immortal " Bells."
Unfortunately these various versions were pub-
lished, their conflicting texts causing bewilder-
ment and misapprehension in the minds of
persons ignorant of the changes and improve-
ments successively made by the poet in his
work. In i858, while O'Hara was editor of
the Mobile Register, the original version of
the poem appeared in that journal. "It was
then published under his own supervision,"
says his friend and companion, Major W. T.
Walthall, who was in Mobile at the time.


47

 
48     THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


Shortly after this, O'Hara made his first general
revision of the Elegy, and in I86o it appeared
in an improved form. Both versions are in the
possession of the writer of this article. That
of i86o, like the original, is composed of
twelve stanzas, and like it is restricted by its
marked local and descriptive features, the
improvement consisting in the substitution of
more appropriate and expressive words and
phrases. Some idea of the changes made in
the original draft, may be had by comparing
the last stanza of that draft with the same stanza
of subsequent versions. In the original it reads-
    "Yon faithful heralds blazoned stone
         With mournful pride shall tell
     When many a vanished age hath flown
         The story how ye fell
     Nor wreck, nor change nor winters blight
         Nor times remorseless doom
     Shall mar one ray of glory's light
         That gilds your deathless tomb."

 
AND ITS AUTHOR.


   Even in the midst of the distractions of the
late war, the fastidious author took time to
give a few more polishing touches to his Elegy,
as it stood in I 86o. This is exhibited in the
improved text of the poem obtained from him
during that struggle, by his old comrade, Col.
John T. Pickett, who said of it: " This version
was repeated to me by the author himself, and
by me written down at the time, and supervised
by him, when together in the city of Mobile,
in i863." But O'Hara was not satisfied with
the version of i863, and he subsequently re-
duced it from twelve stanzas to nine, by elim-
inating weak sentences and descriptive parts,
and by divesting it of that local and provincial
character, which allusions to " Spain," "Angos-
tura," and the " Dark and Bloody Ground,"
had always given it. In this change he dis-
pensed with two stanzas of that version alto-


49

 
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD


gether-the sixth and seventh-while the fifth
and eighth were, with the aid of two new lines,
condensed into one stanza.    Thus, vastly
strengthened, and far more perfect than it had
ever been, he left it at his death. And so we
gave it to the public years ago, verbatim as it
came to us from the hands of his accomplished
sister, Mrs. Mary O'Hara Price. And so we
give it now, minus two typographical errors
then apparent, one at the beginning of the
second stanza, and the other at the end of the
first line of the last stanza.  The words
" rumor" in the first case and " stone" in the
second, are O'Hara's own, and occur in all
his preceding versions, including the original.
In this case the poet makes his own corrections.
The copy of the poem as finally revised by
O'Hara, and as entrusted to his siste</pre>