The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1915-05-04


the Savannah Press Of December II.
Mr.. Oglesby was private secretary to
Alexander H. Stephens. and last year
delivered an address on the life OF
Step1e ems before the U. D. c. at Win
throp, stopping with friends in Colum-
bia for several days on his way to Sa-
Tannah
q was pleased to read, some days
ago. the editorial in which the Sa-
vannah Press corrected a statement
quoted from Frederick j. Hastings as
to the authorship of My Maryland" !"
said Mr.. T. K. Oglesby, in talking to
The Press about the famous Southern
war poem and its. author, James R.
Randall.
81 knew Mr.. Randall intimately"
said Mr. Oglesby, "and had from his
own lips the history of the poem
telling how he came to write it, and
wien and where is was written. He
was native of Maryland, and was
educated there and at Georgetown
college, in the District of Columbia,
but when the War Between the States
began in 1861, he was a professor at
Fgdras college, Pointe Coupee, Louis
lana; and it was there, one night in
April of that year, when he was but
l;44I. oo.+ 90 1,oare of ooo Toof INV
Maryland was written, under the in
spiration of the feelings aroused by
the news of'the passage of Northern
troops through Baltimore, on their
way southwark, and the clash there
between them and citizens of that city.
1t was sleepless night for the young
poet-the Eexiled SON of Maryland
and daybreak found him at the little
desk on which tie wrote the words
that were soon to be ringing through
the land. One of the stanzas, you re-
member, begins with the words:
Come, it's the red dawn of the day!
"The poem was first publisi1 ed in the
New Orleans Delta, and was soon re-
published all over the South. Miss
Jennie Cary, of Baltimore, set it to
the of 'Lauriger Horatius,' and
first sang it with a chorus of her
friends, in drawing room in that city,
which was the poets birthplace. She
and her cousin, Miss Constance Cary,
afterwards sang it to the soldiers OF
the Maryland Line at Manassas. 1t is
surprising, though, tnat Mr.. Haskins
has never learned, Ia all these years,
that James 3. Randall. and not Miss
Cary, was tee author of the song.
Francis Browne, the late editor of
that excellent periodical, The Dial, of
Chicago-nimself a Northern soldier
said of My Maryland that it is
probably the most famous, as it is the
most stirring in it's martial tone, Of
all the poems that the war evoked;
and Oliver Wendell Holmes said lie
only wished that he had done for Mas
sacnuetts, in the way of martial
lyric, what Randall had done for Mary
land 1 have, by the way, scrap of
paper that iaas one one side verse
of My Maryland in its authors hand
writing, and on the other side, in DR..
Holmes own hand, verse from his
poem, The Last Leaf,NThe verse
which DR.. Holmes said was an espe-
cial favorite of Abraham Lincolns.
alexander H. Stephens put My
Maryland into his great book, The
War Between the States and tells of
its popularity as song of the period,
and how then tender voices of young
maiden were often united with tie full
tones of hardy warriors in giving in
creased effect to the soul-inspiring
chorus The despot's heel, however,
Mr. Stephens impressively says,
pressed none the lignter!' Tlis was
an allusion to the words with which
the poem begins
"Mr. Randall never told me so, but
! / think that My Maryland took its
form from Mangan's 'Karamanian
Exile
Il see thee ever in my dreams,
Karaman!
Thy hundred hills, thy thousand
streams,
Karaman, O Karaman!
AS when thy gold-bright morning
CLEANS,
AS when thy deepening sunset seams