James Daniel Lynch

Background

James Daniel Lynch was born on January 6, 1836 in Boydton, Virginia, United States, the scion of a family well known in the early history of Virginia.

Education

Lynch was prepared for college in an academy near his home, and in 1855 entered the University of North Carolina, where he remained for three years.

Career

In 1860 Lynch moved to Mississippi and became instructor in Greek and Latin in the Franklin Academy at Columbus. In 1861, upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he volunteered his services to the Confederacy. After serving as a private for a year, during which time he took part in the Shiloh campaign, he returned to Columbus and organized a company of cavalry, of which he was elected captain, and returned to the front. On June 30, 1864, while leading a charge at Lafayette, Georgia, he was severely wounded. He was subsequently captured in a skirmish near Rome, Georgia, but managed to make his escape by jumping from a moving freight car at night. During the closing months of the war he was connected with the Niter and Mining Department of the Confederacy and was stationed at Selma, Alabama.

After the war Lynch engaged for several years in farming near West Point, Mississippi, then took up the practice of law at Columbus. He was soon forced to abandon the practice of law, however, owing to an impairment of his hearing, brought on by the wound received during the war. He accordingly turned to the profession of letters for a living. In 1879 he published a volume entitled Kemper County Vindicated, and a Peep at Radical Rule in Mississippi; and this was followed in 1881 by The Bench and Bar of Mississippi, a volume of biographical sketches of prominent jurists in his adopted state.

In 1884 he moved to Texas, making his home at Austin for several years, where he wrote his work, The Bench and Bar of Texas (1885). He also published at various times a number of poems. Lynch spent his declining years at Sulphur Springs, Texas, and there prepared for the press two volumes: "The Industrial History of Texas" and "A History of the Territory Indians, " neither of which has been published.

Achievements

• Lynch gained national fame as a poet. The best known of his poems were "The Clock of Destiny, " "The Siege of the Alamo, " and "Columbia Saluting the Nations, " the last of which was selected by the World's Columbian Commission in 1893 as America's salutation to the visiting nations at the World's Fair in Chicago. The most important of his prose works was "The Bench and Bar of Texas" (1885).

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Bench And Bar Of Texas

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Kemper County Vindicated: And a Peep at Radical Rule in Mississippi

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Robert E. Lee, Or, Heroes Of The South. A Poem

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • The Bench and Bar of Mississippi...

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Personality

Lynch was a gentleman of the old school, kindly, chivalrous, unpretentious, but impulsive.

Connections

In February 1861 Lynch was married to Hettie M. Cochran of West Point, Mississippi.

Spouse:

Hettie M. Cochran

References

• Touring Literary Mississippi