I got to wondering this morning where Samuel Hawkins Marshall Byers (left) was buried after his death during 1933 in California at the age of 94 --- reportedly the last surviving veteran of the 5th Iowa Volunteer Infantry. And the answer is Forest Cemetery in Oskaloosa, where his parents and other family members also rest.
Byers, in his time, probably was best known for a poem called "Sherman's March to the Sea," written while confined in Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia, as a prisoner of war.
Some years later, during 1897, he composed "The Song of Iowa," adopted as the state's official anthem by legislative act during 1911. Here's the Iowa Official Register account of how the song came to be written:
"At the great battle of Lookout Mountain I was captured, in a charge, and taken to Libby Prison, Richmond, Va. (Byers wrote). I was there seven months, in one room. The rebel bands often passed the prison, and for our discomfiture, sometimes played the tune 'My Maryland,' set to southern and bitter words. Hearing it once through our barred window, I said to myself, 'I would like some day to put that tune to loyal words.' "
Many years later, in 1897, Mr. Byers carried out his wish and wrote a song to the music of Tannenbaum, the old German folk-song which the Confederates had used for My Maryland. The next night a French concert singer at the Foster Opera House in Des Moines sang the new song upon the request of Mr. Byers. The number was a great success and was encored again and again.
The rest, as they say, is history.
So here for your edification --- just in case you weren't aware that Iowa had an official anthem, is a Friday morning performance of it:
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