Theodore O'Hara
Theodore O'Hara | |
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Theodore O'Hara (February 11, 1820 – June 6, 1867) was a poet and an officer for the United States Army in the Mexican–American War, and a Confederate colonel in the American Civil War. He is best known for the poems "Bivouac of the Dead", which is quoted in many cemeteries, and "The Old Pioneer".
Early life
Theodore O'Hara was born to educator Kean O'Hara and his wife in Danville, Kentucky on February 11, 1820. Afterwards, the family moved to Frankfort, Kentucky. He returned to Danville to go to Centre College and then continued his education at St. Joseph Academy in Bardstown, Kentucky, where he also served as a Greek professor during his senior year.
He later studied law with future
Mexican–American War
As the
Between wars
O'Hara was a firm believer in American expansion, in the form of
O'Hara returned to journalism, first working for the Frankfort Yeoman of Frankfort, Kentucky, and then helping to found the original
Civil War
At the beginning of the
But conflicts with General Braxton Bragg and with President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis hampered his military career and made his efforts to attain a regimental command futile.[5]
Legacy
After the war, O'Hara went to Columbus, Georgia to work in the cotton business, but eventually he lost his business to a fire. He later lived on a plantation near Guerryton, Bullock County, Alabama, where he died. He was returned to Columbus for burial.
On September 15, 1874, his remains, along with those of other Mexican War officers, were buried in the state cemetery at Frankfort Cemetery in Frankfort, Kentucky.
His friend Sergeant Henry T. Stanton read "Bivouac of the Dead" at the reinterment and said, "O'Hara, in giving utterance to this song, became at once the builder of his own monument and the author of his own epitaph."
Lines from the poem would eventually grace the gates of numerous national cemeteries and several monuments of Confederate Dead. In particular, the first verse's second quatrain is often quoted:
On Fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.
Because he served in the Confederacy, O'Hara often goes uncredited when the quatrain is used in non-Confederate settings. There is a dispute over when O'Hara wrote "Bivouac of the Dead". It is popularly thought to be written after the Battle of Buena Vista of 1847, where many Kentucky volunteers died. Others say it was actually written after the Battle of Cárdenas in 1851.
The New York Times wrote that it was first published in the Frankfort Yeoman in 1850, which puts it before O'Hara's Cuba adventures.[2][5][6]
References
- ^ Kleber, John E. Encyclopedia of Louisville. (University Press of Kentucky). p. 666.
- ^ a b c d Bivouac of the Dead – Arlington National Cemetery
- ^ Kleber, p. 666
- ^ Kleber, pp. 666–667
- ^ a b c Kleber 667
- ^ Dixon, Susan Bullitt. "Theodore O'Hara.; His 'Bivouac of the Dead' -- The Correct Version and the Incorrect Ones", The New York Times, p. BR5, August 11, 1900.
Sources
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
External links
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