The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1935-05-24

Or Honor points the halowed spot
Where valor proudly sleeps.
Yon marble mnstrels voiceess stone
In deathless song shall tell
When many a vanQuished age hath flown,
The story how We fell.
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winters blight
Nor times remorseless doom,
Shall dim one ray of glory's light
That gilds your deathless tomb.
O'Hara, home from the wars, tried to settle
down to law practice in Washington again.
But it was not so easy to do. From Cuba came
the news that Lopez was trying to free that
island from the yoke of Spain. The Kentucky
Irishman Joined the ranks of the revolutionsts
and fell desperately wounded while leading a
regiment at Cardenas. Next he accompanied
Walkers famous flibustering expedition to Mica
ragua and when that failed he came back to
the United States and tried his hand at news
paper work. He succeeded brilliantly as editor
Of the Mobile (Ala.) Register.
But in the spring of 1851 the drums began
beating the long roll again O'Hara cast his lot
with the South. He served on the staff of Albert
Sidney Johnston and was at his side when John
ston fell at Shiloh. Then he became chief Of
staff for his fellow-Kentuckian John c. Brock
enridge, fought with him at Stone River and
was with him until the end of the war.
After the war O'Hara engaged in business at
Columbus, Ca then retired to a plantation in
Alabama where he died June z, 1867. In 1873
the Kentucky legislature voted an appropriation
to bring the body of her soldier-poet back to the
Bluegrass The next year they buried him with
military honors in Commonwealth cemetery in
Frankfort He rests there beside his fellow sol
diers for whom he wrote the poem that has be-
come wOrld-famous.
There was a time when iron markers, each
has Sra 0f ma yHpr
through the grounds Of Arlington cemetery near
Washington. Several years ago these markers
were declared "unsghtly" and removed. Re-
Gently, however. it was announced that the poem
Is TO be inscribed on the wall of the trophy room
in the amphitheater opposite the tomb Of the
Unknown Soldier. Thus appropriately in this
sacred shrine of American patriotism win be
preserved imperishably the poem which has been
called "the perfect requiem Of four wars
Theodore O'Hara's The Bivouac of the Dead"
Perfect requiem Of four wars though O'Hara's
poem was, Ii remained for another TO become
more particularly associated with the Memorial
day observance which grew out of the conflict of
1S61-65. On June 1. 1851. Warrentown, Va. held
memorial services over the grave of Confeder-
ate hero. John Quincy MARI. On May i. 1855,
memorial service was held In Charleston. s. c.,
which had been organized by James Redpath
(war correspondent and later founder OF the
Redpath Lyceum bureau) who was then super
Intendent Of the freedmen's schools In that city.
That same year, some time In the spring Of
1866. the women Of Columbus, Ga. had decorated
the graves of their war dead and the following
January the members of the Ladies' Aid society
there decided to perpetuate the custom. They
picked upon April %. 1866. the anniversary Of
the surrender of Gen Joseph Johnston. the last
formal act Of the Civil war. as the date for their
Memorial day celebration.
So they held their memorial services In the