Poet. He became known through his poetry as a spokesman for the defeated Confederacy, the states that attempted to break from the United States during the American Civil War. He was born and reared in Macon, Georgia. He graduated first in the class of 1860 from Oglethorpe University and tutored there until the America Civil War. He supported the secession of Georgia from the Union. In June of 1861 he joined the Macon Guards serving as a private, which became Company I of the 4th Georgia, and was assigned to the Virginia theater through most of the war. On March 9, 1862, he witnessed the Naval battle between the "Monitor" and the "Merrimac." He transferred to mounted signal duty in late summer 1862, and served on the staff of Major General S. G. French. In May 1863, he visited the battlefield of Chancellorsville, which inspired his 1865 poem, "The Dying Words of Jackson." He later served variously as a scout, courier, and signalman aboard blockade runners until being captured at sea on November 2, 1864. He was sent to Point Lookout Prison, Maryland, where he sat out the end of the war. Before pursuing writing full-time, he practiced law. Having a strong musical background, he used this talent in writing his poetry. He is known for his adaptation of musical meter to poetry. He often played piano or the organ in hotels and churches. He was known for using the Southern dialect of American English in his poetry. His poems brought his antebellum views of the South before the Northern and Southern public and may be considered racist in today's world. They included: "The Raven Days," "Civil Rights," "Betrayal," "Corn," "Laughter in the Senate," and "The Revenge of Hamish." His 1878 poem, "The Marshes of Glynn," was inspired by the marshes in Georgia's coastal Glynn County. His only novel, "Tiger Lilies," was published in 1867 while in Prattville, Alabama, and was partly autobiographical, dealing with his time as a POW. In 1879 he became a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. While a POW, he was housed in poor living conditions, thus permanently impairing his health, dying of tuberculosis in Lynn, North Carolina. The largest lake in Georgia is named in his honor as is the longest spanning bridge in the state. A 1972 United States postage stamp honored him as an "American poet".