An elegiac poem written by a Kentucky native has gone down in history as one of the most storied tributes in verse to American soldiers.
Theodore O’Hara (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
The Bivouac of the Dead was written By Theodore O’Hara in 1847 to honor his fellow Kentuckians who died in the Mexican War at the Battle of Buena Vista. The poem was read at the interment of those soldiers at the Frankfort Cemetery during that same year. It’s reported that as many as 20,000 were in attendance, though not O’Hara. But the poem’s popularity grew greater after the Civil War, with verses from the poem appearing on many Confederate soldier memorials and on memorials at the Arlington National Cemetery.
O’Hara was born in Danville on February 11, 1820. His father was a political exile from Ireland. The family later moved to Frankfort, but O’Hara would come back to Danville to attend Centre College. A bright and ambitious young man, he graduated from the St. Joseph Academy, in Bardstown, and while a senior, acted much as a professor and taught his fellow classmates Greek. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1842.
After working for the U.S. Treasury Department, he received an appointment on June 26, 1846, as captain and assistant quartermaster of the Kentucky volunteers involved in the Mexican War. He would attain the rank of major after meritorious conduct. He was discharged on October 15, 1848.
Stanza from Bivouac of the Dead on plaque at Battleground National Cemetery, Washington, DC (Photo courtesy Steve Phan, National Park Service)
Itching for more military involvement, O’Hara joined the Lopez Expedition into Cuba, and he was wounded at Cardenas in 1850. Later, he worked as a reporter in Frankfort for the Frankfort Yeoman and then in Louisville for the Louisville Times in 1852.
Here’s a summary of some of O’Hara’s other career ventures:
• fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War as a lieutenant colonel of the Alabama 12th Infantry
• while with the Confederacy, he served under Gens. Albert Sidney Johnston and John. C. Breckinridge
• lived In Columbus, Georgia, and Guerrytown, Alabama, after the Civil War
O’Hara died on June 6, 1867. He was buried in Columbus, Georgia, but on September 15, 1874, his body was reinterred to his native Kentucky at the Frankfort Cemetery. His grave is marked by a large monument.
Words he penned live on.
The Bivouac of the Dead
The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat
The soldier’s last tattoo;
No more on life’s parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On fame’s eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.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,
At dawn shall call to arms.Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their plumèd heads are bowed;
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms, by battle gashed,
Are free from anguish now.The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle’s stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are past;
Nor war’s wild note nor glory’s peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that never more may feel
The rapture of the fight.Like the fierce northern hurricane
That sweeps his great plateau,
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the serried foe.
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o’er the field beneath,
Knew well the watchword of that day
Was “Victory or death.”Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O’er all that stricken plain,
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;
And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the gory tide;
Not long, our stout old chieftain knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.‘Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr’s grave
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation’s flag to save.
By rivers of their father’s gore
His first-born laurels grew,
And well he deemed the sons would pour
Their lives for glory too.Full many a norther’s breath has swept
O’er Angostura’s plain—
And long the pitying sky has wept
Above the mouldering slain.
The raven’s scream, or eagle’s flight,
Or shepherd’s pensive lay,
Alone awakes each sullen height
That frowned o’er that dread fray.Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,
Ye must not slumber there,
Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air;
Your own proud land’s heroic soil
Shall be your fitter grave;
She claims from war his richest spoil—
The ashes of her brave.So, ‘neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,
Borne to a Spartan mother’s breast,
On many a bloody shield;
The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The heroes’ sepulchre.Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead,
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While Fame her record keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps.Yon marble minstrel’s voiceless stone,
In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanished age hath flown
The story how ye fell;
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter’s blight,
Nor Time’s remorseless doom,
Shall dim one ray of glory’s light
That gilds your deathless tomb.— Theodore O’Hara
Sources: allpoetry.com; The Kentucky Encyclopedia (U. Press of Kentucky, 1992); prabook.com; kynghistory.ky.gov; catholic.com; cem.va.gov
