The New York Times

January 15, 1908, page 9.

James Ryder Randall Dead.

His War Song, “Maryland, My Maryland,” Won Him Instant Fame.

AUGUSTA, Ga., Jan. 14.—James Ryder Randall of this city, author of “Maryland. My Maryland,” and famous as a war poet died here this afternoon from congestion of the lungs. Mr. Randall was born in Baltimore Jan. 1, 1889. At the beginning of the civil war he was Professor of English Literature and the classics at the Poydras College, Louisiana. It was then that “Maryland, My Maryland” was written.

According to his own account, a graphic newspaper report of the passing of a Massachusetts regiment through Baltimore and the sanguinary encounter witha crowd of infuriated men so affected him that that night he could not sleep. He rose from his bed, lit a candle, and began to write at his desk. The metre of one of James Clarence Mangan's poems instinctively presented itself to him, he said, as a proper vehicle for what he wanted to express, and with some rapidity, he wrought out “Maryland, My Maryland.” The next morning he retouched the poem and read it to his pupils, who received with enthusiasm. He then sent a copy to The New Orleans Delta. A few days after its publication Miss Hetty Cary of Baltimore began singing it to the classic melody of “Lauriger Horatius.” Words and music were thus happily united, and from that time on the song was heard in every home and on every camping ground in the South. Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “ My only regret is that I could not do for Massachusetts what Randall did for Maryland.”

At the close or the war Mr. Randall joined the staff of The Augusta Constitutionalist, Augusta, Ga., and soon became its editor-in-chief. When this paper was merged into The Chronicle, he was retained. He afterward became Washington corresondent of The Chronicle and other papers. In 1905 he became editor ot The Morning Star, a Catholic paper pulished in New Orleans. Mr. Randall was the author of “The Lone Sentry,” “There's Life in the Old Land Yet.” “The Battle cry of the South,” “Arlington,” and “The Cameo Bracelet.”

James Ryder Randall Dead, The New York Times, January 15, 1908, page 9.(PDF)