Francis Orrery Ticknor, a physician, and the author of several
lyrics of the Civil War very popular in the South, was a native of
Georgia, and died near Columbus, in that State, in 1874. A
posthumous volume of his poems was issued in 1879, with an
introduction by Paul H. Hayne.
The hero of this poem was Isaac Giffen, a native of the mountainous
region of East Tennessee. He had been terribly wounded at Murfreesboro,
and was taken by Dr. Ticknor and his wife into their own home. He fell
in one of the battles before Atlanta.
=Stanza 5.= “Johnson pressed at the front, they say.” Probably General
Joseph Eggleston Johnston, is meant.