The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-09-29

a captain and quartermaster. but guar termaster as he was he managed to get | into the fighting when any was going E on.
 A Distinguished Soldier.
 If O'Hara had not been poet of world wide fame his fife would hAve entitled him to the fame that belongs to one of the most distinguished sol diers of fortunes of his time Like Richard Couer De Lion he was pleased either to fight or to make verses. Fighting or making verses they were one and the same to him. He may have been no better soldier than Rich ard, but his verses were better:
 He was one of the original adventur- CTS who went from America to set Cuba free. His was among the first Amert- ! can blood shed on Cuban soil, for tn | the Lopez expedition in which he held | the rank of Colonel, he was desper- ateiy wounded at the battle of Carderas What Is more when he had slowly re- gained his strength after this desperate wound he united with that famous soldier of Nfortune. Walker, who con- quered and lost Nicaragua. O'Hera was arrested in New Orleans as he was on the eve of leaving for Nicaragua with Walker, The courts and his In fiuenttaI friends. no doubts, winked at | his alleged giolation of the neutrality 10 In 1853 the only fighting going on was on the frontier of the West. The 1 Indians were giving trouble; the troops | were having a rather hard time of it.. l O'Tiara put his Influence to work, se- 1 cured a commission as captian and took
 hand in the frontier fighting. This was just previous to his Mobile | life as editor of The Register. | After the war was on and after Fort
 MeRae was abandoned as having no
 strategic value O'Hara was elected l Lieutenant Colonel of the 18th Ala
 bama. He was later transferred to the
 stan of General Albert Sidney John- l ston.
 | On that fatefui Sunday afternoon | O'Hara was dashing about the field car l rying message to a brigade comman- l der. when a spent bullet struck Gen. 1 eral Johnston in the, thigh and robbed l the Confederates of the victory they l had already won.
 l o'Hara was later upon the stan of | that distinguished Kentuckian, Gen | eraI John c. Breckinridge The ap- | pointment came ss compliment to him, l for Kentucky seemed always proud to | honor him. And as a stan officer he | served until the war was over and his | dreams were shattered. Then came his | commercial life and his quiet death on
 his Alabama plantation.
 o'Hara was, in turn. college profess | sor. newspaper editor, poet, treasury
 official, Mexican War officer, and civil 1 engineer in Mexico. It was when he | was railroad building in Mexico that | O'HeEa met the Cuban leader and agi- | tatoR Manuel Lopez. Meeting him he l became interested in the expedition and
 joined 1t. only to be shot in the first
 engagement at Cardenas.
 Then he was captain in the United l tn ha | with the Indians, editor of The Mobile | Register, commander of Fort McRae
 and Confederate Colonel until the
 close of the big war and finally an Ala bana planter.
 1 It was full and adventurous life he
 lived.
 History of Family.
 | He came honestly by his adventur-
 ous strain. His father before him had
 raised stir in Island. looking for a | fight or political revolution, and had | to leave to escape a political arrest and l political prosecution. O'Hara, the ei-
 der, was one of Lord FitzgeraId's lieu
 tenants in the Fitzgerald uprising.
 When the rebellion fell through. | OHara, like many of his associates,
 slipped out of Ireland and sailed for | America.
 This was in 179s. Kane oHara, what a fine name for an Irish agita- tor, having a slender pufse. took to school teaching. Ills log eehool house ton of Kentucky. The DOCKS mother was 8 Marylander, having been, descended from a family of the | colonists who came over with Lord Baltimore. After the marriage the school house was opened at Danville. Ky, and here the poet was born on February, II, 1920.
 Kane o'Hara was both a gentleman and q scholar, and he determined that his boy should have the hest educa- tion that pioneer Kentucky could give. He took the boys education into his own hand and prepared him for col- lege. Theodore o'Hara was sent to st. Joseph's College at Bardstown, and his talent was such that he swept every thing before him. sHe took first honors with ease and when he graduated his address was of such a high order that the young man was given immediate recognition.
 Law was his chosen profession. He read-it in the office of John c. Breekinridge who became Vice Presi- dent of the United States and one of those Confederate Brigadiers" who won so much fame for the Confederacy.
 But O'Hara's tastes were literary | rather than legal. He quit the law | for journalism, and went to editing | The Kentucky Yeoman at Frankfort. | In 1s44 he ran campaign paper for | the Democratic party under the title of "The Democratic Rally" When 1t went the way of other such publica- 1 tions. he took a place in the Treasury Department where he remained until | the call to arms for the Mexican War to which he went a captain and re- turned Mator
 When O'Hara was 25 years of age, or in 1s45, his poetical gifts won their first general recognition. The body of the famous old pioneer. Daniel Boone, was removed by the State of Kentucky from It's original place of burial to the Frankfort Cemetery, great celebration marked the day and the principal features of the day was the reading by young Theodore oHara of a poem to the memory of ''The old Pioneer"
 The writing of The Poem.
 The circumstances attending the writing and reading of the poem which gave him immortality are recited by E W. owen Mcintyre, in a syndicate article recently published. The poem was written in honor of the brave Kentuckians who fell in the war with Mexico The bodies of some of these men were taken up and brought to the Frankfort Cemetery, When the bodies reached Frankfort they were given the most imposing funeral that Kentucky had ever seen. Some months later a