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!
Here the army, defeated and broken, came back after the long heroic struggle
to blackened chimneys, sole vestige of home, and the South,
with not even bread for her famished children, still stood in solemn silence
by those deeper furrows watered with blood. The suffering that he endured
was the common suffering of those around him, -- actual physical want
and lack of the commonest comforts of life, felt most keenly
by his sensitive nature and delicate constitution. In the midst of
this fierce stress, his darling boy, the crown of his life, died.
All his affections, it seemed, were poured out at once,
as water spilled upon the ground. He was dying of consumption,
and earth shadows crowded around him.

Though long in feeble health, his last illness was brief.
The best physicians lovingly gave their skillful ministration,
and the State's most eminent men, in their common need, tenderly cared
for him and his. With death before him, he clung passionately to his art,
absorbed in that alone and in the great Beyond. His latest occupation