"Bivouac of the Dead" is a poem written by Theodore O'Hara, a native of Danville, Kentucky, to honor his fellow soldiers from Kentucky who died in the Mexican-American War. The poem's popularity increased after the Civil War, and its verses have been featured on many memorials to fallen Confederate soldiers in the Southern United States, as well as memorials in Arlington National Cemetery, including Arlington's gateway. [1]
When war against Mexico was declared in May 1846, O'Hara left Washington, D.C. to return to his native Kentucky in order to enlist. Within a month, he was appointed Captain of the Kentucky Volunteers, and served as their assistant quartermaster. Before he returned to Kentucky in 1847, he was made a brevet major. After hearing of the severe losses that the 2nd Kentucky Infantry and Kentucky cavalry suffered from the Battle of Buena Vista, O'Hara wrote "Bivouac of the Dead" in dedication of the fallen troops. When many of the fallen Kentuckians were buried in Frankfort Cemetery on July 20, 1847, future congressman and U.S. Vice President John C. Breckinridge spoke for an hour at the event. Whether or not O'Hara spoke "Bivouac of the Dead" is disputed, but it is commonly believed that he did. It is agreed he spoke the poem in 1850 at the same cemetery, for the interment of William T. Barry and General Charles Scott. "Bivouac of the Dead" would later be called "a worthy contribution to American Literature". It was first published in the Frankfort Yeoman in 1850. However, modern historians have also claimed it was not written until 1851, after Narciso López's failed attempt to remove Cuba from Spanish control. [1] [2] [3] [4]
O'Hara was known to change the lyrics to "Bivouac of the Dead". Alternations included removing mentions of specific places, and removing various stanzas. In 1858 the Mobile Register published what is believed to be the original version, with the Louisville Courier publishing the original with an introduction stating it was the version spoken at the 1847 ceremony, reflecting the changes in the poem. In 1900 The New York Times devoted an article decrying all the alterations to the poem, and stressed returning to the original version. [2] [5]
When O'Hara was reinterred at Frankfort Cemetery, a friend used "Bivouac of the Dead" as the eulogy. [2]
The first monument to the fallen Confederate States of America in Kentucky, the Confederate Monument in Cynthiana, used a verse from "Bivouac of the Dead". Six other monuments in Kentucky also used parts of the poem on memorials to fallen Confederates. [6] Portions of the poem are also displayed on 7 plaques at Finn's Point National Cemetery in Pennsville, New Jersey, where a significant number of Confederate Soldiers who died in captivity during the American Civil War are buried.
It was Montgomery C. Meigs who chose to quote "Bivouac of the Dead" for the entrance into Arlington, due to its solemn appeal. However, at Arlington and many other national cemeteries, O'Hara was not credited due to having fought for the Confederacy. [2]
Wisconsin Governor Lucius Fairchild, who lost an arm fighting for the Union at the Battle of Gettysburg, quoted the last stanza of the poem when dedicating the Grant County [Wisconsin] Soldier's Monument on July 4, 1867. [7]
During the late 1920s and 1930s, instances of lines from the poem on markers throughout national cemeteries were removed, leaving only fourteen with "Bivouac of the Dead" verses on tablets. In 2001, the National Cemetery Administration began returning the first stanza to any national cemetery in which the poem is missing. [2] Parts of the poem may be found at Marye's Heights in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Also, Antietam National Cemetery in Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Winchester National Cemetery in Winchester, Virginia, have phrases from the poem on markers at various points.
The poem is cited, without credit, further afield in Europe. For instance, Captain Clarence Jeffries was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded to members of the British and Commonwealth armed forces. He is buried in Tyne Cot Cemetery, Plot 40, Row E, Grave 1, his gravestone quoting "On Fame's eternal camping-ground / Their silent tents are spread".
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori is a line from the Odes (III.2.13) by the Roman lyric poet Horace. The line translates: "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country." The Latin word patria (homeland), literally meaning the country of one's fathers or ancestors, is the source of the French word for a country, patrie, and of the English word "patriot".
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park is a unit of the National Park Service in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and elsewhere in Spotsylvania County, commemorating four major battles in the American Civil War: Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, and Spotsylvania.
Theodore O'Hara 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".
Crown Hill National Cemetery is a U.S. National Cemetery located in Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana. It was established in 1866 on Section 10 within Crown Hill Cemetery, a privately owned cemetery on the city's northwest side. Administered by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Cemetery encompasses 1.4 acres (0.57 ha) and serves as a burial site for Union soldiers who fought in the American Civil War.
The Frankfort Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located on East Main Street in Frankfort, Kentucky. The cemetery is the burial site of Daniel Boone, the famed frontiersman, and contains the graves of other famous Americans including seventeen Kentucky governors and a Vice President of the United States.
The Midway Historic District of Midway, Kentucky, was designated by the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district on November 17, 1978. In 2003, faced with a declining downtown, a major streetscape renovation project began as part of the Kentucky Main Street Program.
The Confederate Monument in Cynthiana is located on the outer edge of Cynthiana, Kentucky in Battle Grove Cemetery. It was the first monument to the Confederate States of America dedicated in the State of Kentucky, and long believed to be the first Confederate memorial anywhere. Due to the 32nd Indiana Monument having been moved from its original location, the Cynthiana monument is the oldest Civil War monument still standing at its original location, where the second Battle of Cynthiana started, in the then-new town cemetery.
The Confederate Monument in Harrodsburg, located at the entrance to Spring Hill Cemetery in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, is a statue listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It depicts a life-sized older Confederate cavalryman standing ready.
The Colored Soldiers Monument in Frankfort, Kentucky's Green Hill Cemetery, at the junction of US 60 and US 421, is the only Kentucky monument honoring black soldiers that participated in the American Civil War, and one of only four in the entire United States. Erected by the Woman's Relief Corps No. 8, an auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic, it was unveiled on July 4, 1924. The only other monument built by GAR in Kentucky is the GAR Monument in Covington.
The Confederate Monument in Danville, originally located between Centre College and the First Presbyterian Church at the corner of Main and College Streets in Danville, Kentucky, was a monument dedicated to the Confederate States of America that is on the National Register of Historic Places. The monument was dedicated in 1910 by the surviving veterans of the Confederacy of Boyle County, Kentucky and the Kate Morrison Breckinridge Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). In 2021, it was relocated to a museum in Meade County, Kentucky.
The Confederate Monument in Frankfort is placed within a circle of the graves of 68 Confederate soldiers in Frankfort Cemetery in Kentucky. The statue depicts a life size Confederate soldier standing ready, carved from white Carrara marble and standing atop a granite pedestal on a limestone base. A flagpole displays the first flag of the Confederacy with seven stars. The monument was erected by Daughters of the Confederacy and unveiled in 1892.
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Confederate monuments and memorials in the United States include public displays and symbols of the Confederate States of America (CSA), Confederate leaders, or Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War. Many monuments and memorials have been or will be removed under great controversy. Part of the commemoration of the American Civil War, these symbols include monuments and statues, flags, holidays and other observances, and the names of schools, roads, parks, bridges, buildings, counties, cities, lakes, dams, military bases, and other public structures. In a December 2018 special report, Smithsonian Magazine stated, "over the past ten years, taxpayers have directed at least $40 million to Confederate monuments—statues, homes, parks, museums, libraries, and cemeteries—and to Confederate heritage organizations."
A Ladies' Memorial Association (LMA) is a type of organization for women that sprang up all over the American South in the years after the American Civil War. Typically, these were organizations by and for women, whose goal was to raise monuments in Confederate soldiers honor. Their immediate goal, of providing decent burial for soldiers, was joined with the desire to commemorate the sacrifices of Southerners and to propagate the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. Between 1865 and 1900, these associations were a formidable force in Southern culture, establishing cemeteries and raising large monuments often in very conspicuous places, and helped unite white Southerners in an ideology at once therapeutic and political.
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