Ryan, Abram J. Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous; (Household Edition of the Poets) Twenty-second Edition, with his Posthumous Poems. With an Introductory Essay by Rev. John Talbot Smith, and an Appreciation by John Moran. New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1903. [7805]
Blue cloth hardcover with blind & gilt decoration, all page edges gilt. 5 1/4 x 7 1/2 inches, xxxviii. 473 clean pp., very light shelf-wear, tight. This later edition has about 125 pp. more than earlier ones. Very good. Hardcover.
Abram Joseph Ryan (1838-1886), "Catholic priest, poet of the Confederacy," born in Hagerstown, Md., to immigrant Irish parents. He was teaching at the diocesan seminary in Cape Girardeau, Mo., when he joined the Confederate Army in September of 1862 as a free-lance chaplain. It was Ryan who ministered to the smallpox victims at the Gratiot prison in New Orleans. He is the author of "In Memory of My Brother," "In Memoriam," "The Conquered Banner," "Sword of Robert E. Lee," "The Lost Cause," "Gather the Sacred Dust," "March of Deathless Dead," and other poems reflecting the Confederate cause.
"He thus became the recognized poet of the Confederacy, described by Robert Taylor of Tennessee in his lecture on The Blue and Gray as the Tom Moore of Dixie, whose spirit shall keep watch over the Stars and Bars until the morning of the Resurrection." quotations from DAB.
With a Memoir of Fr. Ryan and illustrations by Neal A. Truslow.