"Among men of letters, he was always esteemed as a most sympathetic companion; timid, reserved, unready, if taken by surprise, but highly cultivated, and still more highly endowed.
"The key to his social character was to be found in the feminine gentleness of his temperament. He shrank from noisy debate, and the wordy clash of argument, as from a blow. It stunned and bewildered him, and left him, in the m|^el|/ee, alike incapable of defense or attack.
And yet, when some burly protagonist would thrust himself too rudely into the ring, and try to bear down opposition by sheer vehemence of declamation, from the corner where he sat ensconced in unregarded silence, HE WOULD SUDDENLY SLING OUT SOME SHARP, SWIFT PEBBLE OF THOUGHT, which he had been slowly rounding, and smite with an aim so keen and true as rarely failed to bring down the boastful Anakim!"
In Charleston, as a first effort in life, for a brief period Timrod attempted the law, but found that jealous mistress unsuited to his life work, though he had all the opportunity afforded him in the office of his friend, the Hon. J. L. Petigru, the great jurist. Leaving the bar, he thenceforward devoted himself to literature and to his art.
Charleston to Timrod was home, and he always returned with kindling spirit to the city of his love. There were all his happiest associations and the delight of purest friendships, -- W. Gilmore Simms and Paul Hayne, and the rest of the literary coterie that presided over "Russell's Magazine", and Judge Bryan and Dr. Bruns (to whom Hayne dedicated his edition of Timrod's poems), and others were of this glad fellowship, and his social hours were bright in their intercourse and in the cordial appreciation of his genius and the tender love they bore him.
These he never forgot, and returning after the ravage of war to his impoverished and suffering city, he writes, in the last year of his young life, "My eyes were blind to everything and everybody but a few old friends."
Suited by endowment and prepared by special study for a professorship, still all his efforts for the academic chair failed, and, finally, he was compelled to become a private teacher, an office the sacredness of which he profoundly realized.
In his leisure hours he now gave himself up to deeper study of nature, literature, and man. It was in these few years of quiet retreat that he wrote the poems contained in the first edition of his works, 1859-60, which, laden with all the poet's longing to be heard, were little heeded in the first great shock of war. Indeed, in such a storm, what shelter could a poet find? An ardent Carolinian, devoted to his native State with an allegiance as to his country, he left his books and study, and threw himself into the struggle, a volunteer in the army.
In the first years of the war he was in and near Charleston, and wrote those memorable poems and martial lyrics: "Carolina", "A Cry to Arms", "Charleston", "Ripley", "Ethnogenesis", and "The Cotton Boll", which deeply stirred the heart of his State, and, indeed, of the whole South.
His was the voice of his people. Under its spell the public response was quick, and promised largest honor and world-wide fame for the poet.
The project formed by some of the most eminent men of the State, late in 1862, was to publish an illustrated and highly embellished edition of his works in London. The war correspondent of the "London Illustrated News", Vizitelly, himself an artist, promised original illustrations, and the future seemed bright for the gratification of his heart's desire, to be known and heard in the great literary centre of the English-speaking world. But disappointment again was his lot. Amid the increasing stress of the conflict, every public and private energy in the South was absorbed in maintaining the ever weakening struggle; and with all art and literature and learning our poet's hopes were buried in the common grave of war; not because he was not loved and cherished, and his genius appreciated, but because a terrible need was upon his people, and desperate issues were draining their life-blood. Then he went to the front.
Too weak for the field (for the fatal weakness that finally sapped his life was then upon him), he was compelled, under medical direction, to retire from the battle ranks, and made a last desperate effort to serve the cause he loved as a war correspondent. In this capacity he joined the great army of the West after the battle of Shiloh.
The story of his camp life was indeed pathetic. Dr. Bruns writes of him then:
"One can scarcely conceive of a situation more hopelessly wretched than that of a mere child in the world's ways suddenly flung down into the heart of that strong retreat, and tossed like a straw on the crest of those refluent waves from which he escaped as by a miracle."
Home he came, baffled, dispirited, and sore hurt, to receive the succor of generous friendship, and for a brief time a safe congenial refuge, in 1864, in an editor's chair of the "South Carolinian", at the capital of his native State. Here his strong pen wrote the stirring editorials of that critical time, and there, tempted by the passing hour of comparative calm, he married Miss Kate Goodwin, "Katie, the fair Saxon" of his exquisite song. Here the war that had broken all his plans, and wrecked his health and hopes, and made literature for a time in the South a beggar's vocation, left him with wife and child, the "darling Willie" of his verse, dependent upon his already sapped and fast failing strength for support.
Here he saw the capital of his native State, marked for vengeance, pitilessly destroyed by fire and sword. Here gaunt ruin stalked and want entered his own home, made desolate as all the hearthstones of his people. Here the peace that ensued was the peace of the desert!
