THEODORE O'HARA. 1820-1867. THEODORE O'HARA, son of an Irish exile, was born in Danville, Kentucky, and educated at St. Joseph Academy, Bardstown, where he taught Greek to the younger classes while finishing his senior course. He read law, was appointed clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington, 1845, and on the outbreak of the Mexican War entered the army as a soldier, rising to be captain and major. At the close of the war, he returned to Washington and practised law. He was afterwards editor of the "Mobile Register," and of the Frankfort "Yeoman," in Kentucky, and was employed in diplomatic missions. He was a colonel in the Confederate Army, and after the war, settled in Georgia. On his death the Kentucky Legislature passed a resolution to remove his remains to Frankfort and lay them beside the soldiers whom he had so well praised in his "Bivouac of the Dead;" and there 'he rests, the soldier bard, among the voiceless braves of the Battle of Buena Vista. This poem was written for the occasion of their interment; and it has furnished the lines of inscription over the gateways of several military cemeteries. Bivouac of the Dead. WORKS. The Old Pioneer. THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD. (In Memory of the Kentuckians who fell at the Battle of Buena Vista, Jan. 28, 1847.) The muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on Life's parade shall meet On Fame's eternal camping-ground And Glory guards, with solemn round, No rumor of the foe's advance Now swells upon the wind; No troubled thought at midnight haunts Of loved ones left behind; No vision of the morrow's strife The warrior's dream alarms; No braying horn nor screaming fife Their shivered swords are red with rust, And plenteous funeral tears have washed And the proud forms, by battle gashed, Are free from anguish now. The neighing troop, the flashing blade, The charge, the dreadful cannonade, Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal Those breasts that never more may feel The rapture of the fight. Full many a norther's breath has swept And long the pitying sky has wept Alone awakes each sullen height That frowned o'er that dread fray. Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, Where stranger steps and tongues resound Your own proud land's heroic soil Shall be your fitter grave: She claims from war his richest spoil- Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest, Borne to a Spartan mother's breast The sunshine of their native sky Smiles sadly on them, here, And kindred eyes and hearts watch by Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! No impious footstep here shall tread Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone In deathless song shall tell, When many a vanished age hath flown, Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, Shall dim one ray of glory's light That gilds your deathless tomb. FOURTH PERIOD 1850-1894. GEORGE RAINSFORD FAIRBANKS. 1820- GEORGE RAINSFORD FAIRBANKS was born in Watertown, New York, but settled in Florida at St. Augustine in 1842 and identified himself with his adopted state. From 1860 to 1880 his home was at Sewanee, Tennessee, and he has been on the Board of Trustees of the "University of the South" since 1857. During the war he served as major in the Confederate army, 1862-65. In 1880 he returned to Florida and has since made his home in Fernandina. His "History of Florida" is considered the best history of that state, and is written in a clear and interesting style. History of Florida. WORKS. History and Antiquities of St. Augustine. OSCEOLA, LEADER OF THE SEMINOLES. (From History of Florida.*) His true Indian name was As-se-se-ha-ho-lar, or Black Drink, but he was commonly called Osceola, or Powell. He belonged to a Creek tribe called Red Sticks, and was a half-breed. He removed to Florida with his mother when a child, and lived near Fort King [three miles east of Ocala]. At the beginning of the Florida war he was about thirty * By permission of the author. |