CS Abram Joseph Ryan

Abram Joseph Ryan​

Though his role in the Civil War is full of questions, there is no doubt that Father Abram J. Ryan of the Congregation of the Mission was influential on the postwar Lost Cause. After serving as an unofficial chaplain in the Army of Tennessee, he spent the twenty-one years of his life after the war writing poetry eulogizing the Confederacy, most notably in his most famous work, "The Conquered Banner". His diocese-censured hatred of Reconstruction and membership in the White League does not endear him in the modern-day pantheon, but given his time and place in history, it is not unbelievable. He lives on through his poems.

"Treat it gently--it is holy--
For it droops above the dead.
Touch it not—unfold it never,
Let it droop there, furled forever,
For its people's hopes are dead!"

Born: February 5, 1838

Birthname: Matthew Abraham Ryan

Birthplace: Norfolk, Virginia

Father: Matthew Ryan

Mother: Mary Coughlin


Occupation Before War:

1840: Family moved to Ralls County, Missouri
1846: Family moved to St. Louis, Missouri
1851: Entered Vincentian College of St. Mary's of the Barrens in Perryville, Missouri
1858: Studied at the Seminary of Our Lady of the Angels in New York; sent back to St. Mary's after tensions with Abolitionists
1860: Ordained priest in the Congregation of the Mission


Civil War Career:

1861: Transferred back to Seminary of Our Lady of the Angels; returned to St. Louis because of "illness"; served at a parish in La Salle, Illinois; left La Salle because of his pro-Confederate views; believed to be unofficially serving as chaplain for Louisiana soldiers in July-August
1862: Unofficial Confederate chaplain business; arrested by Union soldiers in Nashville, Tennessee for "seditious utterances"
1863: Unofficial chaplain to the Army of Tennessee; possibly at Battle of Chattanooga
1864: Unofficial chaplain during Hood's Tennessee Campaign; parish priest at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Knoxville, Tennessee


Occupation After War:

1865: Started writing poetry
1868: Parish priest in Augusta, Georgia; founded magazine The Banner of the South
1870: Banned from Augusta and The Banner of the South by diocese for outspoken Reconstruction opposition
1871: One of the editors of The Morning Star and Catholic Messenger
1872: Became editor-in-chief of The Morning Star and Catholic Messenger
1875: Retired from The Morning Star and Catholic Messenger
1880: Collected works in Father Ryan's Poems; lectured in Baltimore; Maryland
1882 - 1883: Lectured in Boston, New York; Montreal, Kingston; and Providence, Rhode Island
1883: Spoke at unveiling of Washington and Lee University Lee statue; spoke at the opening of University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia


Died: April 22, 1886

Place of Death: Franciscan friary in Louisville, Kentucky

Cause of Death: natural causes (?)

Age at Time of Death: 48

Burial Place: Old Catholic Cemetery, Mobile, Alabama

 

[SWS]

"Within the limits of the Southern Confederacy and the Catholic Church in the United States no poet was more popular... As a pulpit orator and lecturer, he was always interesting and occasionally brilliant. As a man he had a subtle, fascinating nature, full of magnetism when he saw fit to exert it; as a priest, he was full of tenderness, gentleness, and courage. In the midst of pestilence he had no fear of death or disease. Even when he was young his feeble body gave him the appearance of age, and with all this there was the dreamy mysticism of the poet so manifest in the flesh as to impart to his personality something which marked him off from all other men."

- Catholic Encyclopedia

This is a portrait of Father Abram J. Ryan (aged 24) taken during 1862 while in Tennessee. Ryan was a priest at the Church of the Immaculate Conception from May 1865 until July 1867. (The University of Tennessee Libraries, Knoxville)

 

[TallTallMan]

"Within the limits of the Southern Confederacy and the Catholic Church in the United States no poet was more popular... As a pulpit orator and lecturer, he was always interesting and occasionally brilliant. As a man he had a subtle, fascinating nature, full of magnetism when he saw fit to exert it; as a priest, he was full of tenderness, gentleness, and courage. In the midst of pestilence he had no fear of death or disease. Even when he was young his feeble body gave him the appearance of age, and with all this there was the dreamy mysticism of the poet so manifest in the flesh as to impart to his personality something which marked him off from all other men."

- Catholic Encyclopedia

View attachment 511661
This is a portrait of Father Abram J. Ryan (aged 24) taken during 1862 while in Tennessee. Ryan was a priest at the Church of the Immaculate Conception from May 1865 until July 1867. (The University of Tennessee Libraries, Knoxville)

Thanks!

I added the Immaculate Conception info to the post.

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

Abram Joseph Ryan​

View attachment 511653


Though his role in the Civil War is full of questions, there is no doubt that Father Abram J. Ryan of the Congregation of the Mission was influential on the postwar Lost Cause. After serving as an unofficial chaplain in the Army of Tennessee, he spent the twenty-one years of his life after the war writing poetry eulogizing the Confederacy, most notably in his most famous work, "The Conquered Banner". His diocese-censured hatred of Reconstruction and membership in the White League does not endear him in the modern-day pantheon, but given his time and place in history, it is not unbelievable. He lives on through his poems.

"Treat it gently--it is holy--
For it droops above the dead.
Touch it not—unfold it never,
Let it droop there, furled forever,
For its people's hopes are dead!"

Born: February 5, 1838

Birthname: Matthew Abraham Ryan

Birthplace: Norfolk, Virginia

Father: Matthew Ryan

Mother: Mary Coughlin


Occupation Before War:

1840: Family moved to Ralls County, Missouri
1846: Family moved to St. Louis, Missouri
1851: Entered Vincentian College of St. Mary's of the Barrens in Perryville, Missouri
1858: Studied at the Seminary of Our Lady of the Angels in New York; sent back to St. Mary's after tensions with Abolitionists
1860: Ordained priest in the Congregation of the Mission


Civil War Career:

1861: Transferred back to Seminary of Our Lady of the Angels; returned to St. Louis because of "illness"; served at a parish in La Salle, Illinois; left La Salle because of his pro-Confederate views; believed to be unofficially serving as chaplain for Louisiana soldiers in July-August
1862: Unofficial Confederate chaplain business; arrested by Union soldiers in Nashville, Tennessee for "seditious utterances"
1863: Unofficial chaplain to the Army of Tennessee; possibly at Battle of Chattanooga
1864: Unofficial chaplain during Hood's Tennessee Campaign; parish priest at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Knoxville, Tennessee


Occupation After War:

1865: Started writing poetry
1868: Parish priest in Augusta, Georgia; founded magazine The Banner of the South
1870: Banned from Augusta and The Banner of the South by diocese for outspoken Reconstruction opposition
1871: One of the editors of The Morning Star and Catholic Messenger
1872: Became editor-in-chief of The Morning Star and Catholic Messenger
1875: Retired from The Morning Star and Catholic Messenger
1880: Collected works in Father Ryan's Poems; lectured in Baltimore; Maryland
1882 - 1883: Lectured in Boston, New York; Montreal, Kingston; and Providence, Rhode Island
1883: Spoke at unveiling of Washington and Lee University Lee statue; spoke at the opening of University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia


Died: April 22, 1886

Place of Death: Franciscan friary in Louisville, Kentucky

Cause of Death: natural causes (?)

Age at Time of Death: 48

Burial Place: Old Catholic Cemetery, Mobile, Alabama

Good post. Somehow despite my years of reading I did not know about Father Ryan.

 

[SWS]

Good post. Somehow despite my years of reading I did not know about Father Ryan.

The only Southern poet I recall reading about in a high-school textbook is Lanier, but we never actually went over him compared to the usual Yankee suspects.

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

The only Southern poet I recall reading about in a high-school textbook is Lanier, but we never actually went over him compared to the usual Yankee suspects.

I remember Sidney Lanier, "Over the hills of Habersham, and through the marshes of Glynn...." The only reason that I remember him is probably because I attended Lanier High School

 

[TallTallMan]

The only Southern poet I recall reading about in a high-school textbook is Lanier, but we never actually went over him compared to the usual Yankee suspects.

I remember Sidney Lanier, "Over the hills of Habersham, and through the marshes of Glynn...." The only reason that I remember him is probably because I attended Lanier High School

He'd probably be more remembered if he would've made it into Edmund Wilson's Patriotic Gore.

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

He'd probably be more remembered if he would've made it into Edmund Wilson's Patriotic Gore.

By the way, if memory serves properly from long ago, Sidney Lanier was a Confederate soldier in addition to being a poet. (My curiosity is up, so I will check this.)

 

[TallTallMan]

Here's another religious: Brother Ulric Barth, a Union hospital worker that was exempted from service by Stanton after an appeal from their abbott. He and another monk are covered in this article:

Tales from a Monk in the Union Army: Petersburg - Emerging Civil War

This is the first of a series. In 1864, the United States army was perhaps as diverse as it ever had been. By then, blacks, whites, Republicans, Democrats, Catholics, Protestants, and Jews all served side by side in defense of the Union. But one member of the Army of the Potomac, Pvt...

emergingcivilwar.com