The Sweetheart of the Civil War
By Ernie Thode
Martha Ellen Bloxsom was born on 8 December 1828 in Zanesville, Ohio, to William Bloxsom, an attorney and judge, and his wife, Anna Fulkerson. Martha was married on 26 October 1854 to William Wartenbe Johnson of Ironton, Ohio, who died on 2 March 1887. She died in Marietta, Ohio, on 3 March 1917, and was buried in Woodland Cemetery in Ironton, Ohio on 5 March 1917.
There is no space on genealogy charts for a person's first love, though. Sometimes there is more to a story than meets the eye. You see, back around the late 1840s or early 1850s our Ella was living with her older sister Mary Amanda and her wealthy husband Henry Blandy in Zanesville, when along came a young man named Henry de Lafayette Webster. As a youth, Webster had lived in a meager cabin and assisted his blacksmith father in his shop, but after an accident crippled his right hand, his prospective career path changed. He studied, taught in Kentucky, and then read law in Columbus, Ohio. But he gave up law after becoming interested in theology and became a Universalist minister, where his first pastorate was in Zanesville, Ohio, where he and Ella became acquainted.
Ella and Henry were smitten with each other and became engaged to marry. But that was not a popular move for her. She was dissuaded from this marriage by her sister and family because they did not approve of her marrying beneath her station. After all, a judge's daughter just did not marry someone having only the financial prospects of a poor preacher. As the Rev. Webster later wrote, "thus proving the woman's better sense as to the affair." But Rev. Webster never forgot his Ella.
Our Ella (alias Martha ) and Henry each wound up happily marrying other people and living apparently successful lives. In fact, Martha Bloxsom married an attorney, a future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the state of Ohio, the aforementioned William Wartenbe Johnson - and their son was named Henry Blandy Johnson after her properly wealthy brother-in-law. But Henry de L. Webster could not entirely forget the romantic episode with Martha Ellen Bloxsom. In March 1854, while he was pastor of a congregation in Warren, Massachusetts, he wrote a poem about it, using the name Bertha for the sweetheart instead of Martha.
Later on, Henry became acquainted with another (unrelated) Webster, Joseph Philbrick Webster, who wrote the familiar hymn "In the Sweet Bye and Bye," who took Henry's verses and set them to music, but he said he needed a name of three syllables. Maybe Edgar Allan Poe's "Lost Lenore" was a partial inspiration besides Ellen/Ella, but Joseph Webster came up with the name "Lorena" and it was a suitable, lyrical title. H. M. Higgins Brothers of Chicago published it, and it was an instant hit, with its touching story and a haunting melody.
LORENA
Words
by Henry de Lafayette Webster, Music by Joseph Philbrick
Webster.
"The years creep
slowly by, Lorena;
The snow is on the
grass again;
The sun's low down the
sky, Lorna;
The frost gleams where
the flowers have been, But the heart beats on as
warmly now
As when the summer
days were nigh;
Oh, the sun can never
dip so low
Adown affection's
cloudless sky!
A hundred months have
passed, Lorena, Since last I held that hand in mind,
And felt the pulse beat
fast, Lorena, Though mine beat faster far than thine. A hundred months - 'twas flowery May, When up the hilly slope we climbed,
To watch the dying of
the day,
And hear the distant
church-bells chimed.
We loved each other
than, Lorena, More than we ever dared to tell;
And what we might have
been, Lorena, Had but our lovings
prospered well! But then, 'tis past; the years are gone; I'll not call up their
shadowy forms; I'll say to them: Lost years, sleep on!
Sleep on! nor heed life's pelting storms.
The story of the past,
Lorena,
Alas! I care not to
repeat:
The hopes that could
not last, Lorenz, They lived, but only lived to cheat! I would not cause e' en
one regret To rankle in your bosom now;
For, "if we TRY,
we may forget," Were words of thine, long years
ago.
Yes, these were words
of thine, Lorena: They burn within my memory yet;
They touched some
tender chords, Lorena, Which thrill and tremble with regret; 'Twas not thy woman's hear that spoke: Thy heart was always
true to me:
A DUTY, stern and pressing,
broke
The
tie which linked my soul to thee.
It matters little now,
Lorena;
The past - is in the
eternal past;
Our heads will soon
lie low, Lorena, Life's tide is ebbing out so fast.
There is a future! Oh!
thank God!
Of life this is so
small a part!
'Tis
dust to dust beneath the sod;
But there, UP THERE,
'tis heart to heart!
It became a standard, a well-known song that everyone knew. And then came the Civil War, when millions of men were separated from their sweethearts. Naturally this was a song that soldiers would sing around their campfires. It was sung by both the North and South, but was especially popular among Southern soldiers. It was so popular, in fact, that officers of both sides forbade the singing of it because they had experienced desertions by homesick, lovesick soldiers.
How many people can say "I was the subject of the most popular love song of an era?" Pioneer settlements were named for Lorena. Women, particularly in the South, were named Lorena. An excursion steamboat named "Lorena" was based in Martha Ellen Bloxsom's home town of Zanesville from 1895 to 1916, and since 1976 there has been another "Lorena" tourist boat in Zanesville.
Mrs.
Martha Ellen Johnson died in her home at 325-327 Second Street
in
So now you know the rest of the story, a little more than just a listing of names and dates. Perhaps we should now add some aliases to the genealogy chart - Ella, Bertha, but most of all Lorena - the most famous Lorena of all time.