Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1921-07-12

soon discovered that the shortest
road to my friend RandaLs heart was
down his throat and he was at his
brightest and best after good dinner.
1t was on one of these occasions
that I asked Randall what inspired
him to write Maryland, My. Mary
land?"
'Fleas, Gantt!' was the prompt re-
ply to my query.
II can't see any connecting link be-
wecn fieas and poetry" I remarked
Explain yourself"
1T was nevertheless true" contI-
ued Randall, that had not the flea
been created My Maryland would
never have been written. 1 was a
youth and my father sent me to a
Catholic school in Louisville to be
educated. The war broke out and be-
fore ] could return home the blockade
was on and all communication cut off.
I was the most homesick. fellow you
ever heard tell of, and eagerly read
every scrap of news in Gthe papers
about Maryland, and being intensely
southern, wanted my state to secede
and join the Confederacy. My patriot
ic blood was further heated by the
fighting on the streets Of Baltimore
when Lincoln attempted to send
troops through that city to garrison
Washington.
WELL" continued Randall, "the
house where and some other stu
dents slept had no fence around it and
an old sow and little pigs took lodg-
ment beneath the floor and they de-
veloped "a regular flea factory. Not
only our room but even the beds be-
came alive with feas. Having read
on account of the Baltimose riot in the
New Orleans Picayune, Iswas nervous
and excitable, and to aggravate mat
ters, fleas seemed literally eating me
alive. Finding it impossible to sleep,
I got up and began to walk the floor
and scratch. My eyes rested on pen,
ink and scraps of paper student had
left on the table in our room. With
out giving the poem any~thought, /
took up the pen and to relieve my
feelings, began writing. that song. The
words simply flowed from my pen as
my thoughts reverted to the bloodshed
and situation in my native state.
did not think enough Of my produc-
tion to read or revise it. I stuck the
manuscript in a pocket of my coat
that was hanging on chair and gave
it no more thought for week, when
felt it in my pocket 4nd, drawing it
out, handed it to one of the professors.
Carefully reading it, :he remarked:
Jim. there is merit IN these verses
and I am going to have them publish
ed and he did. -1.a,
That, CAN'T" continued Randall,
"is the true story of just; how Mary
land My Maryland came to be writ
ten The inspiration, or rather incen-
tive, was feas and the patriotic and
indignant outbursts Of a homesick
Baltimore youth. 1t is one song that
I rather think wrote itself"
Had our Lost Cause, triumphed
Randalls Maryland, MY Maryland"
would have been to the Southern, Con-
federacy what Keys "Star-Spangled
Banner" is to our now firmly united
Union.
Since Roget D'Isle gave to the French
Revolution the Marseillaise Hymn,
there has never been penned O more
inspiring war song than Maryland,
My Maryland"
An old veteran told me that when
Lee invaded Pennsylvania the first
ompany that plunged into the Poto-
mac, across which was the Maryland
shore. struck up Maryland, My Mary
land" The entire army took up the
refrain, and my informant said that
had the Federal troops then appeared.
it mattered not how great their num-
ber, under the. wrought-up feelings
created by. that inspiring song. they
would have been swept away as
straws before a tempest.