Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-05-25

added the spirit of bubbling exuberance
to every campfire He fought in those
battles of Buena Vista and Chapuitepec
and wherever else there was fighting, and
SO we'll did he bear himself that he was
breyetted ajor for gallantry In battle
The spirit of the man was SO restless,
as has been the spirit of many another
genius. that he did I0t remain with the
army in times of peace. He resigned ana
practiced law in Washington for a While
but found other adventures that appealed
more strongly
1t was at about this time that the Lo-
PEI uprising occurred in Cuba, and many
Young American adventures enlisted in
the cause of the liberation of that island
and sailed away to fight its battles. O'Hara
commanded one of the regiments that
participated in the disastrous night AT
Cardenas and from that battlefield he
was carried. sorely wounded. while his
comrades were badly beaten and broken
up.
Not in the least discouraged. the spirit
of adventure still surged within him and
little later he was found to be MEM
Der of an expedition under Walker which
pushed into the center of Africa and re-
turned much the worse for wear and with
little other than the experience OF hard
ship to show for the trip.
In the years that followed the young
adventurer played the game OF editor in
many southern cities. In Mobile he was
editor of the paper of Mr.. John Forsythe
lister to Mexico. In Louisville and Frank
fort he similarly off1ciated and ultimately
became editor of his own paper, the 1eo-
man in Frankfort. Ky 1t was here that
the occasion arose that led TO his writing
the greatest mortuary poem in all history
that today. at the behest of the govern
ment itself has become official.
Many experiences had been crowded
into a span Of but twenty-seven years
of living when, in 1s41, the state OF
Kentucky sent to Mexico and brought
back the remains of her soldiers who
had died in the war to the south and
buried them with all military honors in
the state cemetery at Frankfort. These
were the men with whom O'Hara had
campaigned, had fought. and had con-
uuered He knew of every experience
that had led up to their deaths and had
harbored in his breast every aspiration
every joy OF battle that had been theirs
His friends and comrades were here
being buried
O'Hara was asked by the Governor Of
Kentucky to write and read a poem upon
the occasion of the burial of these. his
comrades. In the Office of the Woman
in Frankfort the lines that now are
scattered throughout the national Gene
teries of the country were penned. In
little saloon across the street from the
statehouse they We're first read and the
auditors were former comrades at arms
and Young bloods there assembled. Those
who heard pronounced the poem good
and on the following day this. the great
est poem of it's kind ever written was
read over the remains of the Kentucky
soldiers who had died in Mexico.
The nook in the state cemetery at
Frankfort where these men We're buried
has come peculiarly to shadow forth the
spirit of OHara. The state erected a tall
shaft in honor of the Mexican martyrs.
When OHara read his poem there he
little realized that he was detailing his
own epitaph and that he. too. would rest
there and that these same lines would
appear on his tomb Yet such are the
facts At this time also there was no
monument to Daniel Boone, who lay near
the same spot and in whose honor this
poet was to write another elegy of rare
beauty. thus. rounding out his coupiet
of poems in lifetime.
The years that interviewed between the