Abram Joseph Ryan
Encyclopedia
Abram Joseph Ryan OSFS, was an American
poet
, an active proponent of the Confederate States of America
, and a Roman Catholic priest
. He has been called the "Poet-Priest of the South," and less frequently, the "Poet Laureate of the Confederacy."
, Maryland
, to Irish
immigrants Matthew Abraham Ryan and Mary Coughlan Ryan of Clogheen
, County Tipperary
. He moved with his family briefly to Norfolk, Virginia, and then to St. Louis
, Missouri
, where he was educated first at the Academy of Christian Brothers. Later Ryan studied for the priesthood at St. Mary's of the Barrens Seminary near Perryville, Missouri, with a year serving as prefect at Niagara University
in New York State. On September 12, 1860, he was ordained a priest in the Vincentian
order.
As a new priest, he taught theology
at St. Mary's of the Barrens and was also listed in 1860-61 on the faculty roster of the diocesan
seminary
in Cape Girardeau, Missouri
. In the Fall of 1861, soon after the start of the American Civil War
, he was transferred to Niagara University but remained there for less than a year, until being transferred again to parish duties in La Salle, Illinois. Early researcher Fr. Joseph McKey believed that Ryan took occasional periods of sick leave from these positions due to bouts of neuralgia, but Ryan's friend Monsignor J. M. Lucey, V.G., (and several other clerical contemporaries) believed that Ryan had made sporadic early appearances as a free-lance chaplain among Confederate troops from Louisiana. Some circumstantial evidence supports Lucey's position; Ryan's handwritten entries disappeared from the St. Mary's Seminary house diary for a full month after the battle of First Manassas, for example, during a period when the Archbishop of New Orleans was actively recruiting free-lance (unofficial) Catholic chaplains to serve Louisiana troops. And in a newspaper account of his 1883 sermon in Alexandria, Virginia, Ryan was quoted as having mentioned his ministry to Louisiana soldiers during the war. Respected Tennessee historian Thomas Stritch confirms that Ryan began making appearances in Tennessee in 1862, even while his official postings were in Niagara and Illinois, and these absences from his northern posts may have been the underlying cause of his frequent reassignments.
Fr. Ryan began formal full-time clerical duties in Tennessee in late 1863 or early 1864. Though he never formally joined the Confederate Army, he clearly was serving as a free-lance chaplain by the last two years of the conflict, with possible appearances at the Battle of Lookout Mountain
and the Battle of Missionary Ridge
near Chattanooga (both in late November 1863), and well-authenticated service at the Battle of Franklin
(November 1864) and the subsequent Battle of Nashville
(December 1864). Some of his most moving poems—"In Memoriam" and "In Memory of My Brother"—came in response to his brother's death, who died while serving in uniform for the Confederacy in April 1863, probably from injuries suffered during fighting near Mt. Sterling, Kentucky.
", appeared in the pages of the New York Freeman’s Journal
over his early pen-name "Moina." Because the same pen-name had been used by southern balladeer Anna Dinnies, anthologist William Gilmore Simms
mistakenly attributed "The Conquered Banner" to her, prompting the Freeman's Journal to reprint the poem over Fr. Ryan's name a year later. Published only months after General Robert E. Lee
surrendered at Appomattox
, "The Conquered Banner" captured the spirit of sentimentality and martyrdom then rising in the South. Its metrical measure was taken, he once told a friend, from one of the Gregorian hymn
s. Within months it was being recited or sung everywhere from parlors to public meetings.
Starting in 1865, near the war's end, Ryan moved from parish
to parish throughout the South
, moving from a brief posting in Clarksville
, Tennessee
(November 1864-March 1865), with subsequent stays in Knoxville
(April 1865-December 1867), Augusta
Georgia
(January 1868-April 1870), and a lengthier tenure in Mobile
, Alabama (June 1870-October 1880). He then spent a year in semi-retirement at Biloxi
, Mississippi
(November 1881-October 1882) while completing his second book, A Crown for Our Queen.
In Augusta, Georgia, he founded The Banner of the South, a religious and political weekly in which he republished much of his early poetry, along with poetry by fellow-southerners James Ryder Randall
, Paul Hamilton Hayne
, and Sidney Lanier
, as well as an early story by Mark Twain
. His newspaper was also notable for publishing submissions by a number of period women authors, including three poems by Alice Cary
, and for his oft-quoted editorial supporting greater appreciation of the role of women in the study of history and literature. He continued to write poems in the Lost Cause style for the next two decades. Among the more memorable are "C.S.A.", "The Sword of Robert E. Lee", and "The South". All centered on themes of heroic martyrdom by men pledged to defend their native land against a tyrannical invader. As one line goes, "There’s grandeur in graves, there’s glory in gloom." Within the limits of the Southern Confederacy and the Catholic Church in the United States, no poet was more popular. But he actually penned a far greater number of verses about his faith and spirituality, such as "The Seen and the Unseen" and "Sea Dreamings," which reached a nationwide audience in The Saturday Evening Post
(January 13, 1883, p. 13). In 1879, Ryan's work was gathered into a collected volume of verse, first titled Father Ryan's Poems and subsequently republished in 1880 as Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous. His collection sold remarkably well for the next half-century, going through more than forty reprintings and editions by the late 1930s. Ryan's work also found a popular following in his family's ancestral home of Ireland. An article about his work appeared in Irish Monthly
during his life, and a decade after his death, yet another collection of his poetry was published in Dublin by The Talbot Press under the title Selected Poems of Father Abram Ryan.
, where his Poems: Patriotic, Religious, and Miscellaneous were republished. He also delivered his first lecture on "Some Aspects of Modern Civilization". During this visit he made his home at Loyola College
. In return for the Jesuit fathers' hospitality, he gave a public poetry reading and devoted the $300 proceeds to establish a poetry medal at the college. In November 1882 he returned to the north for an extended lecture tour that included appearances in Boston, New York, Montreal, Kingston, and Providence, Rhode Island. Contrary to an earlier biographical article which termed this tour unsuccessful, recent research into period newspapers shows that Fr. Ryan's lecture tours of 1882-83 were phenomenally popular, with newspapers in every city Ryan visited describing packed houses and thunderous ovations. In June 1883, he accepted an invitation to recite his poem "The Sword of Robert Lee" at a ceremony marking the unveiling of Lee's statue on the campus of Washington and Lee University, and the same month, delivered the commencement address at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Ryan died April 22, 1886, at a Franciscan
friary in Louisville
, Kentucky
, but his body was returned to St. Mary's in Mobile for burial. He was interred in Mobile's Old Catholic Cemetery
. In recognition of his loyal service to the Confederacy, a stained glass window was placed in the Confederate Memorial Hall
in New Orleans
, Louisiana
, in his memory. In 1912 a local newspaper launched a drive to erect a statue to him. Dedicated in July 1913, it included a stanza from "The Conquered Banner" below an inscription that reads: "Poet, Patriot, and Priest."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, an active proponent of the Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
, and a Roman Catholic priest
Priesthood (Catholic Church)
The ministerial orders of the Catholic Church include the orders of bishops, deacons and presbyters, which in Latin is sacerdos. The ordained priesthood and common priesthood are different in function and essence....
. He has been called the "Poet-Priest of the South," and less frequently, the "Poet Laureate of the Confederacy."
Early life
Ryan was born on February 5, 1839 in HagerstownHagerstown, Maryland
Hagerstown is a city in northwestern Maryland, United States. It is the county seat of Washington County, and, by many definitions, the largest city in a region known as Western Maryland. The population of Hagerstown city proper at the 2010 census was 39,662, and the population of the...
, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, to Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
immigrants Matthew Abraham Ryan and Mary Coughlan Ryan of Clogheen
Clogheen, County Tipperary
Clogheen is a village in South Tipperary, Ireland. The latest census of 2006 recorded the population of Clogheen at 509.-Location:It lies in the Galtee-Vee Valley with the Galtee Mountains to the north and the Knockmealdowns in close proximity to the south. The River Tar which is a tributary of...
, County Tipperary
County Tipperary
County Tipperary is a county of Ireland. It is located in the province of Munster and is named after the town of Tipperary. The area of the county does not have a single local authority; local government is split between two authorities. In North Tipperary, part of the Mid-West Region, local...
. He moved with his family briefly to Norfolk, Virginia, and then to St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, where he was educated first at the Academy of Christian Brothers. Later Ryan studied for the priesthood at St. Mary's of the Barrens Seminary near Perryville, Missouri, with a year serving as prefect at Niagara University
Niagara University
Niagara University is a Catholic university in the Vincentian tradition, located in the Town of Lewiston in Niagara County, New York. Originally founded by the Congregation of the Mission in 1856 as Our Lady of Angels Seminary, it became Niagara University in 1883. The University is still run by...
in New York State. On September 12, 1860, he was ordained a priest in the Vincentian
Lazarists
Congregation of the Mission is a vowed order of priests and brothers associated with the Vincentian Family, a loose federation of organizations who claim St. Vincent de Paul as their founder or Patron...
order.
As a new priest, he taught theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
at St. Mary's of the Barrens and was also listed in 1860-61 on the faculty roster of the diocesan
Diocese
A diocese is the district or see under the supervision of a bishop. It is divided into parishes.An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese. An archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or had importance due to size or historical significance...
seminary
Seminary
A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
in Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Cape Girardeau is a city located in Cape Girardeau and Scott counties in Southeast Missouri in the United States. It is located approximately southeast of St. Louis and north of Memphis. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 37,941. A college town, it is the home of Southeast Missouri...
. In the Fall of 1861, soon after the start of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, he was transferred to Niagara University but remained there for less than a year, until being transferred again to parish duties in La Salle, Illinois. Early researcher Fr. Joseph McKey believed that Ryan took occasional periods of sick leave from these positions due to bouts of neuralgia, but Ryan's friend Monsignor J. M. Lucey, V.G., (and several other clerical contemporaries) believed that Ryan had made sporadic early appearances as a free-lance chaplain among Confederate troops from Louisiana. Some circumstantial evidence supports Lucey's position; Ryan's handwritten entries disappeared from the St. Mary's Seminary house diary for a full month after the battle of First Manassas, for example, during a period when the Archbishop of New Orleans was actively recruiting free-lance (unofficial) Catholic chaplains to serve Louisiana troops. And in a newspaper account of his 1883 sermon in Alexandria, Virginia, Ryan was quoted as having mentioned his ministry to Louisiana soldiers during the war. Respected Tennessee historian Thomas Stritch confirms that Ryan began making appearances in Tennessee in 1862, even while his official postings were in Niagara and Illinois, and these absences from his northern posts may have been the underlying cause of his frequent reassignments.
Fr. Ryan began formal full-time clerical duties in Tennessee in late 1863 or early 1864. Though he never formally joined the Confederate Army, he clearly was serving as a free-lance chaplain by the last two years of the conflict, with possible appearances at the Battle of Lookout Mountain
Battle of Lookout Mountain
The Battle of Lookout Mountain was fought November 24, 1863, as part of the Chattanooga Campaign of the American Civil War. Union forces under Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker assaulted Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and defeated Confederate forces commanded by Maj. Gen. Carter L. Stevenson....
and the Battle of Missionary Ridge
Battle of Missionary Ridge
The Battle of Missionary Ridge was fought November 25, 1863, as part of the Chattanooga Campaign of the American Civil War. Following the Union victory in the Battle of Lookout Mountain on November 24, Union forces under Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant assaulted Missionary Ridge and defeated the...
near Chattanooga (both in late November 1863), and well-authenticated service at the Battle of Franklin
Battle of Franklin
Battle of Franklin may refer to three battles of the American Civil War:* Battle of Franklin , a major battle fought November 30, 1864, at Franklin, Tennessee as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign...
(November 1864) and the subsequent Battle of Nashville
Battle of Nashville
The Battle of Nashville was a two-day battle in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign that represented the end of large-scale fighting in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. It was fought at Nashville, Tennessee, on December 15–16, 1864, between the Confederate Army of Tennessee under...
(December 1864). Some of his most moving poems—"In Memoriam" and "In Memory of My Brother"—came in response to his brother's death, who died while serving in uniform for the Confederacy in April 1863, probably from injuries suffered during fighting near Mt. Sterling, Kentucky.
Post bellum
On June 24, 1865, his most famous poem, "The Conquered BannerThe Conquered Banner
The Conquered Banner was the most popular of the post-Civil War Confederate poems. It was written by Roman Catholic priest and Confederate Army chaplain, Father Abram Joseph Ryan, who is sometimes called the "poet laureate of the postwar south" and "poet-priest of the Confederacy."The poem was...
", appeared in the pages of the New York Freeman’s Journal
New York Freeman
The New York Freeman formally the New-York freeman's journal and Catholic register, was an American Catholic newspaper. It was owned at its inception by Bishop John Hughes....
over his early pen-name "Moina." Because the same pen-name had been used by southern balladeer Anna Dinnies, anthologist William Gilmore Simms
William Gilmore Simms
William Gilmore Simms was a poet, novelist and historian from the American South. His writings achieved great prominence during the 19th century, with Edgar Allan Poe pronouncing him the best novelist America had ever produced...
mistakenly attributed "The Conquered Banner" to her, prompting the Freeman's Journal to reprint the poem over Fr. Ryan's name a year later. Published only months after General Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee
Robert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
surrendered at Appomattox
Appomattox Court House
The Appomattox Courthouse is the current courthouse in Appomattox, Virginia built in 1892. It is located in the middle of the state about three miles northwest of the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, once known as Clover Hill - home of the original Old Appomattox Court House...
, "The Conquered Banner" captured the spirit of sentimentality and martyrdom then rising in the South. Its metrical measure was taken, he once told a friend, from one of the Gregorian hymn
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...
s. Within months it was being recited or sung everywhere from parlors to public meetings.
Furl that banner, softly, slowly!
Treat it gently—it is holy--
For it droops above the dead.
Touch it not—unfold it never,
Let it droop there, furled forever,
For its people's hopes are dead!
—The Conquered Banner.
Starting in 1865, near the war's end, Ryan moved from parish
Parish (Catholic Church)
In the Roman Catholic Church, a parish is the lowest ecclesiastical geographical subdivision: from ecclesiastical province to diocese to deanery to parish.-Requirements:A parish needs two things under common law to become a parish...
to parish throughout the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
, moving from a brief posting in Clarksville
Clarksville, Tennessee
Clarksville is a city in and the county seat of Montgomery County, Tennessee, United States, and the fifth largest city in the state. The population was 132,929 in 2010 United States Census...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
(November 1864-March 1865), with subsequent stays in Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
(April 1865-December 1867), Augusta
Augusta, Georgia
Augusta is a consolidated city in the U.S. state of Georgia, located along the Savannah River. As of the 2010 census, the Augusta–Richmond County population was 195,844 not counting the unconsolidated cities of Hephzibah and Blythe.Augusta is the principal city of the Augusta-Richmond County...
Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
(January 1868-April 1870), and a lengthier tenure in Mobile
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...
, Alabama (June 1870-October 1880). He then spent a year in semi-retirement at Biloxi
Biloxi, Mississippi
Biloxi is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, in the United States. The 2010 census recorded the population as 44,054. Along with Gulfport, Biloxi is a county seat of Harrison County....
, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
(November 1881-October 1882) while completing his second book, A Crown for Our Queen.
In Augusta, Georgia, he founded The Banner of the South, a religious and political weekly in which he republished much of his early poetry, along with poetry by fellow-southerners James Ryder Randall
James Ryder Randall
James Ryder Randall was an American journalist and poet. He is best remembered as the author of "Maryland, My Maryland".-Biography:Randall was born on January 1, 1839 in Baltimore, Maryland....
, Paul Hamilton Hayne
Paul Hamilton Hayne
Paul Hamilton Hayne was a nineteenth century Southern American poet, critic, and editor.-Biography:Paul Hamilton Hayne was born in Charleston, South Carolina on January 1, 1830. After losing his father as a young child, Hayne was reared by his mother in the home of his prosperous and prominent...
, and Sidney Lanier
Sidney Lanier
Sidney Lanier was an American musician and poet.-Biography:Sidney Lanier was born February 3, 1842, in Macon, Georgia, to parents Robert Sampson Lanier and Mary Jane Anderson; he was mostly of English ancestry. His distant French Huguenot ancestors immigrated to England in the 16th century...
, as well as an early story by Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
. His newspaper was also notable for publishing submissions by a number of period women authors, including three poems by Alice Cary
Alice Cary
Alice Cary was an American poet, and the sister of fellow poet Phoebe Cary .-Biography:Alice Cary was born on April 26, 1820, in Mount Healthy, Ohio near Cincinnati. Her parents lived on a farm bought by Robert Cary in 1813 in what is now North College Hill, Ohio. He called the Clovernook Farm...
, and for his oft-quoted editorial supporting greater appreciation of the role of women in the study of history and literature. He continued to write poems in the Lost Cause style for the next two decades. Among the more memorable are "C.S.A.", "The Sword of Robert E. Lee", and "The South". All centered on themes of heroic martyrdom by men pledged to defend their native land against a tyrannical invader. As one line goes, "There’s grandeur in graves, there’s glory in gloom." Within the limits of the Southern Confederacy and the Catholic Church in the United States, no poet was more popular. But he actually penned a far greater number of verses about his faith and spirituality, such as "The Seen and the Unseen" and "Sea Dreamings," which reached a nationwide audience in The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
(January 13, 1883, p. 13). In 1879, Ryan's work was gathered into a collected volume of verse, first titled Father Ryan's Poems and subsequently republished in 1880 as Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous. His collection sold remarkably well for the next half-century, going through more than forty reprintings and editions by the late 1930s. Ryan's work also found a popular following in his family's ancestral home of Ireland. An article about his work appeared in Irish Monthly
Irish Monthly
The Irish Monthly was an Irish Catholic magazine founded in Dublin, Ireland in July 1873. Until 1920 it had the sub-title A Magazine of General Literature. It was founded by Rev. Matthew Russell, S.J., , who was the editor for almost forty years from 1873...
during his life, and a decade after his death, yet another collection of his poetry was published in Dublin by The Talbot Press under the title Selected Poems of Father Abram Ryan.
Do we weep for the heroes who died for us,
Who living were true and tried for us,
And dying sleep side by side for us;
The Martyr-band
That hallowed our land
With the blood they shed in a tide for us?—C.S.A.
Later life
In 1880 his old restlessness returned, and he headed north for the twofold object of publishing his poems and lecturing. He spent December in Baltimore, MarylandMaryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, where his Poems: Patriotic, Religious, and Miscellaneous were republished. He also delivered his first lecture on "Some Aspects of Modern Civilization". During this visit he made his home at Loyola College
Loyola College in Maryland
Loyola University Maryland is a Roman Catholic, Jesuit private university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Established as Loyola College in Maryland by John Early and eight other members of the Society of Jesus in 1852, it is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges...
. In return for the Jesuit fathers' hospitality, he gave a public poetry reading and devoted the $300 proceeds to establish a poetry medal at the college. In November 1882 he returned to the north for an extended lecture tour that included appearances in Boston, New York, Montreal, Kingston, and Providence, Rhode Island. Contrary to an earlier biographical article which termed this tour unsuccessful, recent research into period newspapers shows that Fr. Ryan's lecture tours of 1882-83 were phenomenally popular, with newspapers in every city Ryan visited describing packed houses and thunderous ovations. In June 1883, he accepted an invitation to recite his poem "The Sword of Robert Lee" at a ceremony marking the unveiling of Lee's statue on the campus of Washington and Lee University, and the same month, delivered the commencement address at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Ryan died April 22, 1886, at a Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
friary in Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, but his body was returned to St. Mary's in Mobile for burial. He was interred in Mobile's Old Catholic Cemetery
Old Catholic Cemetery (Mobile, Alabama)
Catholic Cemetery, formerly known as the Stone Street Cemetery, is a historic cemetery located in Mobile, Alabama, United States. It was established in 1848 by Michael Portier, a native of Montbrison, France and the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Mobile...
. In recognition of his loyal service to the Confederacy, a stained glass window was placed in the Confederate Memorial Hall
Confederate Memorial Hall
Confederate Memorial Hall is a museum located in New Orleans, Louisiana containing historical artifacts related to the Confederate States of America and the American Civil War. It is historically also known as "Memorial Hall". It houses the second largest collection of Confederate Civil War items...
in New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, in his memory. In 1912 a local newspaper launched a drive to erect a statue to him. Dedicated in July 1913, it included a stanza from "The Conquered Banner" below an inscription that reads: "Poet, Patriot, and Priest."
Tributes
- A memorial plaque has been erected at his former parish, Immaculate Conception Church, in Knoxville, Tennessee.
- Father Ryan High SchoolFather Ryan High SchoolFather Ryan High School is a private, Roman Catholic high school in Nashville, Tennessee. It is located in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nashville and named for Father Abram J. Ryan.-Campus:...
in Nashville, Tennessee, is named for him. - A memorial park with a statue of Father Ryan is in downtown Mobile, AL.
- Father Ryan is commemorated on the Poet's Monument in Augusta, Georgia, along with Sidney Lanier, Paul Hamilton Hayne, and James Ryder Randall
- There is a stained glass window at the Confederate Museum in New Orleans
- There is a stained glass window depicting Father Ryan at Bapst Library, Boston College
- A memorial plaque graces the front of St Boniface Church in Louisville KY, the remaining active portion of the Franciscan Monastery where he died. The adjoining monastery building is now apartments.
Selected works
- Father Ryan's Poems. Mobile, J. L. Rapier & co., 1879.
- Poems: patriotic, religious, miscellaneous. Baltimore, J. B. Piet, 1880.
- A Crown for Our Queen. Publisher and date unknown.