Southern poet, born at Charleston, SC, on the 8th of December, his father being a well-to-do bookbinder with poetic tastes, who died while Henry was in childhood. After some preliminary training in his native city, young Timrod entered the University of Georgia, but ill-health compelled him to leave before finishing his course. The study of law proved uncongenial to his poetic nature and he became a teacher. His earlier poetical pieces, which appeared, from about 1849 to 1853, in the Southern Literary Magazine and the short-lived Russell’s Magazine (both of Charleston), attracted local notice. In 1860 he brought out a small volume of his poems through Ticknor & Fields of Boston. His feelings at this eventful period were intensely Southern, and on the outbreak of the civil strife he became the Tyrtæus of the South. His lyrics, “A Cry to Arms” and “Carolina,” as well as his addresses “To the Unknown Dead” and “To Spring,” and his “Carmen Triumphale,” breathe a spirit of almost feminine tenderness mingled with the fire of martial ardor. For some time Timrod was war-correspondent for the Charleston Mercury; in 1863 he removed to Columbia, SC, where he became editor and part proprietor of The South Carolinian. This position promised a moderate competence, and in 1864 he married Miss Kate Goodwin. On the entrance of Sherman’s army into Columbia, his office, printing press, etc., were demolished and himself ruined. “My story for the last year” he wrote his friend Col. P. Hayne in March 1866, “is beggary, starvation, death [he had lost a child], bitter grief, utter want.” For a time he wrote editorials for The Carolinian of Charleston, and later was glad to act as temporary clerk to Gov. Orr. In 1867, owing to failing health, he on two occasions accepted the invitation of Col. Hayne to share his quaint home in the pine-woods of Georgia. Alarming hemorrhages drove him back to his home in Columbia, and he died there, on the 7th of October 1867. An enlarged edition of his poems and a sketch of his life by Paul H. Hayne appeared in 1873. See also Literary Criticism.
