Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1907-08-10
FINE POEMS AUTHOR.
How F. NJ. Finch Wrote 1.-THE
Blue and the Gray"
INSPIRED BY A. NOBLE DEED.

Impartial Floral Tribute From Women
Of Columbus, Miss, to Memory of
Confederate and Federal Soldiers
Caused ithaca's Ex-Judse to Pen
Verses Of National Repute.
1t was in 1857, while the fires of hate
were actively burning both north and
south, that the famous poem, "The
Blue and the Gray" was written, says
II. J. w. Dam in the New York Trib-
une's Sunday Magazine The north
was flushed with triumph; the south
was red with the shame of defeat, and
both mourned their countless dead. A
little company of grieving women at
Columbus, Miss, seeing in war; as wo-
men do, only it's tragedy and it's woe,
mournfully decorated the graves of the
dead Yankee, soldiers in the .locai grave
yard as well as those OF their own kin.
A dispatch telling Of this incident was
printed in the Tribune as follows:
The women of Columbus Miss, Animal
ed by nobler sentiments than are many
Of their sisters, have shown themselves
impartial in their offerings to the memo
~ Of the dead. They strewed flowers
alike on the graves of the Confederate
and of the Federal soldiers.
This dispatch was read in the spring
of 1867 by lawyer Of forty living in
the town of Ithaca, N. Y, whose ardent
partisanship for the north did not in
hibit his sympathy with the fallen
dead Of the south. Though he had nev-
er published a poem, he had, as will be
seen, a singularly rare poetic gift. In
speaking of it this author, Francis
Miles Finch, widely known in legal
circles and formerly associate justice
OF the court Of appeals of New York,
who recently died at Ithaca, said:
When read those lines in the Tribune,
1t struck me that the south was holding
out a friendly hand and that it was our
duty not only as conquerors, but as men
and their fellow citizens of the nation, to
grasp It,. If the war was over and peace
had supervened, it seemed to me that
peace should be re-established in our
hearts as well as upon our records
And thus it was that he wrote Of
the war that was over and of the dead
that remained. The whole spirit of
his poem was the equality that lies in
death. He gave to the conqueror his
"robings Of glory to the conquered
their gloon of defeat but was
moved to say: ...,.. =.
So with an equal splendor
The morning sun rays fall,
With touch impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all.
This was the spirit and the message
that the blossoms bloomed alike for
all who had fallen. 8.7s q. d. a. ~: e..
Having written it, he desired for the
first and only time in his life to have
one Of his poems published. His nat
urai selection of a medium for this
purpose was the Atlantic Monthly.
The volume of the magazine in which,
in September, 1867, it first appeared,
contained verses from Oliver Wendell
Holmes, e. c. Stedman, James Rus
sell Lowell. John G. Whittier, Alice
Cary, Theodore Tilton and other
names Of authors and poets well
known in American literature. :"
The editor accepted the poem, but
asked that the facts in the Tribune
dispatch, which was quoted above 1t,
be incorporated in it's body so as to
form the opening verse. The author
tried this, but the result was unsatis-
factory, and the poem was finally
printed as originally written. The au-
thorf was given in the index as "F.
M. Finch name entirely unknown
to literature. No poem by any OF the
famous authors named, however has
ever enjoyed 1.-THE of it's widespread
popularity or it's powerful social re-
suit.