Long before Axl Rose and Freddie Mercury came along, poets were the 19th century version of the rock star, and one of those stars, James Ryder Randall, called Augusta home later in his life.
I recall my young daughter once asked me what people did for entertainment before the internet, and I once asked a similar question of my parents when I found out they grew up before televisions were widely available.
When I grew up, there were only three channels on a tube that took up half of the den! OMGROTFLMAO!!
In the 1800s, for entertainment, people read these little rectangular things called books, and one of the most popular genres was poetry.
Executive Editor of The Augusta Press, Debbie van Tuyll has written about the reading habits of 19th century women and says reading, like singing, was a form of entertainment while people went about the drudgery of everyday life before the advent of the smartphone.
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“They would be together with one woman reading aloud from a book of poetry while the others sewed or cooked. That was one of the few means of entertainment they had in those times compared to today,” van Tuyll said.
Edgar Allan Poe started off as a poet before he became the master of mystery fiction, and one of his earliest published poems was “To Octavia,” which is an ode to unrequited love and was dedicated to an Augusta woman, Octavia Walton LeVert.
While James Ryder Randall never achieved the lasting fame of Poe, he was an important poet of his time.
Randall is most known for his poem “Maryland, My Maryland,” which was the official song of the state of Maryland until 2021 and was famously recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford.
According to the New York Times, the song, which was based on the poem by Randall, was officially retired due to its content.
Randall was a Confederate sympathizer, and his poem branded U.S. President Abraham Lincoln a “despot” and made a reference to US soldiers as “Northern Scum.”
Considering that John Wilkes Booth yelled “Sic semper tyrannis!” from the stage at Ford’s Theatre after shooting President Lincoln, it might be that the assassin was influenced by the poetry he read, and it is quite amazing that the song remained Maryland’s anthem for as long as it did.
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After the Civil War Randall, retired to Augusta and worked as an editor for The Augusta Chronicle newspaper, but his time as a rock star poet was over.
American journalist H.L. Menken wrote, wrongly, that “there is no movement to erect a monument to Randall, or even to mark his grave. Where he lies, I don’t know.”
Well, Randall lies right here in Magnolia Cemetery, and his name is included on the monument to poets on Greene Street, but he likely will be forever remembered not because of the flourish of his pen on paper, but because he focused his talents on supporting a cause that was based on the enslavement of human beings.
…And that is something you may not have known.
Scott Hudson is the senior reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
