"It was at Point Lookout [a federal prison for Confederate soldiers during the Civil War], twenty years ago, that I made the acquaintance of Sidney Lanier. We were in the Confederate service, and both, though running at different times, had been captured at sea by a blockade boat. I was the first to encounter my fate, and had been some weeks a prisoner when he was brought in.
"It was a trying time, the midsummer season, and the 'long, yellow days,' as one poor fellow termed them, made the hospitals full and death rates appalling. Late one evening I heard from our tent the clear sweet notes of a flute in the distance, and I was told that the player was a young man from Georgia, who had just come among us. I forthwith hastened to find him out, and from that hour the flute of Sidney Lanier was our daily delight. It was an angel imprisoned with us to cheer and comfort us.
"Well I remember his improvisations, and how the young artist
stood there in
the twilight (it was his custom to stand while he
played) breathing what seems to me now the first dream of his
wonderful 'Marsh Hymns.' Many a stem eye moistened to hear him,
many a homesick heart for a time forgot his captivity. The night
sky clear as a dewdrop above us, the waters of the Chesapeake
[Bay] far to the east, the long gray beach and the distant pines,
seemed all to have found an interpreter in him....
"His music embodies the charm of his verse, the same deep, wave like passionate swell of the long full line. His 'Magic Flute' was his soul's mouthpiece for many a year before he wrote poetry. In all these dreary months of imprisonment, under the keenest privations of life, exposed to the daily manifestations of want and depravity, sickness and death, his was the clear hearted, hopeful voice that sang these words in after years:
'Sweet friends,
Man's love ascends
To finer and diviner ends
Than man's mere thought e'er comprehends.'
"We lived as fellow prisoners for more than six months, and at the end of that time were exchanged together. The boat that brought us to Aiken's Landing was delayed for some time before reaching the wharf. While we were very impatiently waiting, a steamer from Richmond came alongside and someone called out to a man on our deck to inquire if Sidney Lanier was on board. The flute had betrayed its master again; but this time it told of a captive's release."
Sidney Lanier's Obituary
From Montgomery Daily Advertiser, September 11, 1881.
The sad news has been received in this city that this eminent
writer and excellent gentleman had succumbed at last to the dread
disease that had so long preyed upon him. He died at Asheville,
North Carolina, on Thursday last [Sept. 7, 1881] -- a victim of
consumption. He had been ill for many months, and, some weeks
since, went to Asheville with the vain hope that its bracing air
would arrest the cruel inroads the disease was fast making upon
his failing strength. But it was too late. He has passed away in
the very prime of his young manhood, and when he had attained a
fame which opened to him a field of usefulness and honor that any
man might have envied. His name is not only a familiar sound in
all literary circles throughout the United States, but his works
were hardly less popular in England. He was only thirty-eight
years old. He leaves a widow and several children. Our fellow
citizen, Mr. Clifford A. Lanier, is a brother of the deceased. He
accompanied the remains to Baltimore, where they were
interred.
Biographical Sketch
Sidney Lanier was born in Macon, Georgia, on February 3, 1842,
son of Robert Sampson Lanier and Mary Jane Anderson Lanier. He
attended Oglethorpe University located in Midway, Georgia, gradu-
ated at age 17 and taught several years at that university,
volunteered in the Confederate Army, was in the 2nd Georgia Bat-
talion which included the Macon Volunteers, served on a blockade
runner as a signal officer, and was captured in 1864. He spent
five months in a federal prison at Point Lookout, Maryland, and
there contracted tuberculosis from which he never recovered. He
was exchanged after the war, returned to Macon, taught school
briefly, and later in 1865 went to Montgomery, Alabama, to work
as a clerk for his grandfather in the Exchange Hotel. During the
years 1865-1867, when Lanier worked as a desk clerk, he began
writing his first novel, Tiger Lilies. During that time,
he also studied law and was admitted to the Alabama Bar. It is
said, however, that his heart was not in practicing law. He was a
lover of music, and he excelled not only as a flute player, but
he also played with much success the banjo, guitar, violin and
the organ. While a resident of Montgomery he was organist at the
First Presbyterian Church. He played the wedding march at the
December 20, 1866, wedding of Georgena Bird to Thomas Goode
Jones. Jones later was elected governor of Alabarna, 1890-1894.
Eventually Sidney Lanier moved to Prattville, Alabama, where he was a teacher and served as principal of a school. While he lived in Prattville he married a Miss Mary Day of Macon.
In the
Spring of 1867, he travelled to New York to attempt to get his
book, Tiger Lilies, published. 
He left Prattville with his
fimiily in 1869 and returned to Macon where he began to practice
law until 1873. His health gradually deteriorated; he travelled
to various parts of the country seeking relief in different
climates, and even rented a house and resided at Point Clear for
a brief period. During these years his reputation as a poet was
secured and his fame spread throughout the country.
Settling in Baltimore in 1873, Lanier became the first flutist of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra of Baltimore, and in 1879 he was appointed lecturer in English literature at Johns Hopkins University. During this period he wrote poetry, fiction and criticism. His works include his novel Tiger Lilies, and his poems include The Marshes of Glynn, Song of the Chattahoochee, Sunrise, A Ballad of Trees and the Master, Corn, Mocking Bird, and Evening Song. He also wrote musical compositions for the flute: Music for Three Flutes, Little Ella, Windsong, and Dance des Mouches.
As noted in the Montgomery Daily Advertiser of September 11, 1881, Sidney Lanier died in Asheville, North Carolina, on September 7, 1881. He left a wife and two children. Relatives in Montgomery included his brother, Clifford Lanier, and his niece, Mrs. John Tilley, daughter of Clifford Lanier. To this day generations of Laniers still reside in Montgomery.
In February, 1940, a bronze memorial tablet was placed in the First Presbyterian Church of Montgomery, where he had served as organist. It can be seen on the left wall of the sanctuary. It was placed there by the Dixie Chapter of the UDC. In March 1940, a tablet commemorating Lanier and his residence in Montgomery was installed in the lobby of the Exchange Hotel, where he had served as clerk. It was placed there by the Sophie Bibb Chapter of the UDC. The Exchange Hotel was demolished in Montgomery in 1974 to make way for the construction of the Colonial Bank building. Although a memorial tablet to the old Exchange Hotel is on the right wall of the lobby which is entered from Montgomery Street, the memorial tablet to Sidney Lanier is not there. Sidney Lanier was for a period of two years a resident of Montgomery. His flute is in the collection of artifacts in storage at the Alabama Department of Archives and History.
