The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVI. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I.
§ 27. Peace; Resignation
When peace came, the defeat of the South, its unconquerable loyalty to the lost cause, and its sad resignation at the inevitable found expression in Mrs. Preston’s Acceptation, Requier’s Ashes of Glory, Flash’s The Confederate Flag, and, above all, Father Ryan’s The Sword of Robert Lee and The Conquered Banner. Not until the end of the war did the last-named poet suddenly flash forth as the most popular of all Southern poets. The Conquered Banner was written under somewhat the same circumstance as My Maryland—written in less than an hour as he brooded over the thought of the dead soldiers and the lost cause. He wrote other poems, chiefly religious, but none that has ever stirred the hearts of the people like these two written in the shadow of defeat.
Somewhat different in tone and spirit is The Land Where We Were Dreaming, by Daniel B. Lucas. Written and first printed in Montreal, whither the author had fled at the end of the war, it is a striking expression of a Southerner’s awakening from the illusions which had so long dominated the thought of the people. There is the same loyalty to the leaders and the principles of the South, but a glimpse of reality that augured a readjustment for the future.