"Words for the Hour": A New Anthology of American Civil War Poetry

Henry Timrod (1828–1867)

Henry Timrod (1828–1867) Often called the “Poet Laureate of the Confederacy,” Henry Timrod is considered by many scholars to be the most gifted of the Southern poets writing in this era. Born in Charleston, South Carolina,Timrod was descended on both sides of his family from military men. His father, who was also a poet, fought in Florida in the war against the Seminoles; he died while Timrod was still young as a result of an illness contracted during this campaign. After attending private school in Charleston,Timrod enrolled at the University of Georgia, but ill health and lack of funds forced him to withdraw before completing his degree. Thereafter, Timrod studied law briefly before deciding to embark on a career in teaching. When he was unable to find a position at a college, Timrod chose to work as a private tutor. During this time, he began to publish poetry; his pieces appeared first in Charleston newspapers and then in the prestigious Southern Literary Messenger. With his lifelong friend Paul Hamilton Hayne,Timrod was at the center of a vibrant community of writers in Charleston, despite his personal shyness. William Gilmore Simms, an early supporter of Timrod’s work, sought to build relationships between local scholars and this younger generation of writers. It was this Charleston community that launched Russell’s Magazine, where many of Timrod ’s poems and critical essays on poetry appeared.The success of Timrod’s work in Russell’s led to the publication of a volume of his poems in  by Ticknor and Fields, one of the leading literary publishing houses in the North.The volume received favorable reviews in both the North and the South; it was to be the only volume published during Timrod’s lifetime. Timrod was a Southerner by birth and by vocation.Though he produced some of his finest poems during the war years, the fall of the Confederacy accelerated his decline into tuberculosis and poverty.He wrote some of his most powerful poems in the white heat of Southern patriotism that the first two years of the war prompted in him: “Ethnogenesis,” “A Cry to Arms,” “Charleston,” and “The Cotton Boll” all date from this period. While the poems he wrote before the war often focus on the beauty of nature in the South, the political crisis of the war gives his representations of Southern landscapes a new vitality and force.Though Timrod attempted to serve in the military, poor health forced him to take a position as a war correspondent for the Charleston Mercury instead. In early January , Timrod moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where he became an associ-  ate editor of the South Carolinian. Shortly thereafter he married Kate Goodwin; the couple’s only child, a son, was born a year later. When Sherman’s* forces arrived in Columbia in February , Timrod went into hiding. When he reemerged, he found a devastated city; his infant son died in the autumn of that year. In the aftermath of the war, Timrod struggled to make ends meet and had little time for writing poetry; he worked for a time as an editor for the Carolinian and then as a clerk in the governor’s office. Though “” ends on a moment of hope, one senses in the poem an undercurrent of sadness that reflects the losses Timrod endured in the final years of his life. Paul Hamilton Hayne edited a collection of Timrod’s poems after his death, thereby preserving many poems that might otherwise have been lost. Ethnogenesis1 I Hath not the morning dawned with added light? And shall not evening call another star Out of the infinite regions of the night, To mark this day in Heaven? At last, we are A nation among nations; and the world Shall soon behold in many a distant port Another flag unfurled! Now, come what may, whose favor need we court? And, under God, whose thunder need we fear? Thank Him who placed us here Beneath so kind a sky—the very sun Takes part with us; and on our errands run All breezes of the ocean; dew and rain Do noiseless battle for us; and the Year, And all the gentle daughters in her train, March in our ranks, and in our service wield Long spears of golden grain!  C  V  C W P . Published in the Charleston Daily Courier on February , , as “Ode on Occasion of the Meeting of the Southern Congress”; the first Southern...