Father Abram J. Ryan 1838-1886

Father Abram Ryan was known as the poet-priest of the South. Abram Ryan was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on August 15, 1838, August 5, 1838, or August 15, 1839. His parents, Matthew Ryan and Mary Coughlin, were Irish immigrants. Abram was raised and educated at Christian Brothers School. After studying priesthood at Niagra University in New York State, he attended the Our Lady of Angles Seminary. He was ordained just before the beginning of the Civil War, and entered the Confederate army as a chaplain. He served in this capacity until the end of the war, delivering sacraments to the soldiers on both sides. In the hour of defeat he won the heart of the entire South by his poem, "The Conquered Banner," in which exquisite measure was taken, as he told a friend, from one of the Gregorian hymns.
"The Conquered Banner" was read or sung in every Southern household, and thus became the apotheosis of the "Lost Cause". While much of his later war poetry was notable in its time, this first effort, which fixed his fame, was his finest production. The only other themes upon which he sang were those inspired by religious feeling. Among his poems of that class are to be found bits of the most exquisite imagery. Within the limits of the Southern Confederacy and the Catholic Church in the United States, no poet was more popular. After the war he exercised a ministry in New Orleans, and was editor of "The Star," a Catholic weekly. He later founded "The Banner of the South" in Augusta, Georgia, a religious and political weekly.
In 1880 he lectured in several Northern cities. As a pulpit orator and lecturer, he was always interesting and occasionally brilliant. As a man he had a subtle, fascinating nature, full of magnetism when he saw fit to exert it. As a priest, he was full of tenderness, gentleness, and courage. In the midst of pestilence he had no fear of death or disease. Even when he was young his feeble body gave him the appearance of age, and with all this there was the dreamy mysticism of the poet so manifest in the flesh as to impart to his personality something which marked him off from all other men. His book, "Poems, Patriotic, Religious, and Miscellaneous", have had dozens of printings.
He died in Louisville, Kentucky, on April 22, 1886, a poet, a patriot, and a Catholic priest. In the introduction of a poetry book, published 1897, says:
'So distinguished a character and so brilliant a man cannot be passed over lightly, or dealt with sparingly...for Abram Ryan's fame is the inheritance of a great and enlightened Nation, and his writings have passed into history to emblazon its pages and enrich its history.'

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