Sidney Lanier composed "Song of the Chattahoochee" in November 1877 for a small paper in West Point, Georgia; nonetheless, at the time he considered it the best poem he had ever written, and critics have generally agreed that it is one of his finer efforts. Originally from Macon, Georgia, Lanier travelled much in Georgia, Maryland, Florida, and North Carolina for employment and for his health. He fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War and was eventually captured by Union troops. He spent the rest of the war in prison, where he relieved his own sufferings and those of his fellow prisoners with melodious tunes on the flute he had taught himself to play when he was younger. But unfortunately, he contracted tuberculosis, and he spent the rest of his life trying unsuccessfully to restore himself to good health. These circumstances— travel, flute-playing, military discipline, and a keen awareness of his own mortality—may account for the major elements of his poetry : nature, music, moral duty, and religion. Lanier was able to see much of the South's natural beauty, and he found much religious and spiritual significance in it. As a poet, he is regarded as a minor writer in American literature whose prime contribution was to lyrical or musical poetry in the tradition of the American poet Edgar Allan Poe and the English poet Alfred Tennyson. "Song of the Chattahoochee" is primarily a musical poem whose words flow very much like the river that is its speaker. The river's aim is to do its duty, answering the call of God.