Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/89

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General Lytle may have written the verses with which he is gen- erally credited, but if so, he must have completed them fully three years before the battle of Chickamauga was fought, as the poem wa> published in a weekly paper in one of the Louisiana parishes in 1860, so we have been informed by a gentleman who resided in that section of the country at that time. We rather incline to the opinion that ex-Governor Allen, of Louisiana, who died an exile in Mexico shortly after the close of the war, was their author. He was one of the most talented men in the Pelican State, but died several years before any controversy arose as to the authorship of the poem.

OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC LEDGER, Edwards & Fiveash, Proprietors, NORFOLK, VA., October 12, 7^95.

lid i tor States, By the enclosed clipping you will see that the claim is still made that General Lytle, who was killed at Chicka- mauga, completed the poem "Antony and Cleopatra" the night before he was killed.

For a number of years we had in our employ, as local reporter, Mr. T. B. Ruffin, who is now dead. Mr. Ruffin was a printer, and went from Virginia to the Southwest about 1858, where he remained until the war broke out, when he returned as a member of a Mem- phis company. Some twelve or fifteen years ago, when conversing with him relative to the poem named, he told me that he had read it about the year 1860 in a weekly paper published in Louisiana, in the neighborhood of Donaldsonville, I think. The name of the paper, if he told me, I have forgotten. I have since been of the opinion that ex-Governor Allen, of your State, composed the poem, and if you ascertain the name of the paper and the date on which the poem was published I think that you could prove the ground- lessness of the claim that has been made in Ohio that General Lytle composed the verses.

Mr. Ruffin worked in Baton Rouge on State printing, I think, shortly before the war commenced. He was in Memphis, however, when the storm burst in the spring of 1861.

With many wishes for your health and happiness, I am, Yours very truly,

JOSEPH G. FIVEASH.

I'. S. My partner, Mr. Edwards, says that he thinks that Ruffin named the Sugar ffmvl as the paper that published the poem.

J. G. F.