William Haines Lytle
On day, just before the war, standing on our office steps in Cincinnati, there passed by a young man about thirty years of age. He was alone, and as he approached we looked at him with unusual interest. He was rather short in stature, thin in the flanks, but broad, full-chested. His complexion was very fair, and beard long, flowing and silky, and his face frank and genial. He walked erect and, as was his wont, very leisurely, and with a side-to-side swing. As his eye met ours a slight smile flit over his face, not one of recognition for there was no acquaintance. Probably his mind was far away and he did not see us, and it was the memory of a happy incident that had lighted his face with the momentary joy. Possibly it was the earnestness of our gaze, if perchance he noticed it, but that was pardonable. His fellow-citizens were proud of him and liked to gaze upon him, being, as he was, to the manor born and a man of poetic genius, Wm. Haines Lytle, the author of “Antony and Cleopatra,” whose name was to go down to posterity as the “Soldier Poet.” His reputation at the time was that of being highly social and possessed of winning politeness, a modest bearing and chivalrous spirit. One by our side, who was under him, as we write, says: “My regiment was marching as aim escort to some baggage wagons when an aid galloped up to me and said, ‘General Lytle sends his compliments to Col. Beatty with the request to send a company to the rear to guard against guerillas.’” To be ever courteous seems to have been as a sort of intuition with him, and showed the high refinement of the man. It is said that just before the fatal charge at Chickamauga he drew on the gloves with the remark, “If I must die I will died as a gentleman.” Whether true or a myth it matters not: if a myth is invention shows it was characteristic and, therefore spiritually true.
Wm. Haines Lytle came from a Scotch-Irish stock, and noted for warlike qualities and experiences. He was born in the old Lytle mansion on Lawrence street, November 2, 1826, graduated at Cincinnati College at twenty years of age, following his naturally military instincts became a Captain in Second Ohio in the war with Mexico, studied and practised the law, was a member of the Ohio Legislature, in 1857 was Major-General of the State militia. When the rebellion broke out he was commissioned Colonel of the Tenth Ohio, the Cincinnati Irish regiment, which he led into Western Virginia, and fell wounded at Carnifex Ferry while leading a desperate charge was again badly wounded and taken prisoner at Perrysville, where his regiment suffered terrible loss, he was commissioned General and commanded First Brigade of Sheridan’s division on the fatal field of Chickamauga, where he fell at the head of his column while charging pierced by three bullets. “Captain Howard Green, a volunteer aid, sprang from his horse, received the General in his arms, and was rewarded with a smile of grateful recognition. Several officers and orderlies attempted to bear him off the field. The peril of this undertaking may be imagined since two of the orderlies were killed, and Col. Wm. B. Mc Creary wounded and left for dead on the field.
General Lytle repeatedly opened his eyes and motioned to his friends to leave him and save themselves. Finally, upon coming to a large tree upon a green knoll, they laid him down. He then handed his sword to one of the orderlies, and waving his hand toward the rear, he thus tried to express with his last breath that his well tried blade should never lull into the hands of the enemy. So closed the life of the poet-soldier, Lytle. His death found him, as he prophetically wrote years before:
“On some lone spot, where, far from home and friends,The way-worn pilgrim on the turf reclining, His life, and much of grief, together ends.’’
Lytle had many friends in the Southern army, and his remains were treated with every mark of respect, his mourners being alike his friends and foes. His body was tempo-rarily buried in a coffin until they could be sent home. Until the outbreak of the war, poetry was to him a frequent occupation and amusement. That on which his fame will permanently rest, “Antony and Cleopatra,” was originally published, in 1857, in the Cincinnati Enquirer.
From Historical Collections of Ohio by Henry Howe; Pub. 1888