Paul Hamilton Hayne (January 1830-6 July 1886), in the 1870s and 1880s known throughout the nation as the "poet laureate of the South," is best remembered today as a Southern poet and man of letters. Hayne was born in Charleston, the son of Paul Hamilton and Emily McElhenny Hayne and a scion of one of the most distinguished families in South Carolina. Colonel Isaac Hayne, a Revolutionary patriot executed by the British, was an ancestor and two of Hayne's uncles were United States Senators, one of whom, Robert Y. Hayne, distinguished himself against Daniel Webster in the Senate debate on Nullification. Before Hayne was two, his father, a young naval officer, died of yellow fever, and he was reared by his mother with the help of his Uncle Robert. Before Robert Hayne died in 1839, he taught his nephew to ride and hunt and instilled in him principles of duty...