Strangers to Us All Lawyers and Poetry

Robert Morton Hughes

(1855-1940)
Virginia

Robert Morton Hughes was born in Abington, Virginia in 1855. He attended William and Mary College and the University of Virginia. He took up the practice of law in 1877 in Norfolk. In 1895 he was President of the Virginia State Bar Association. Most of his poetry, by his own choosing, remained unpublished.

[Source: Armistead C. Gordon, Jr., Virginian Writers of Fugitive Verse 122 (New York: James T. White & Co., 1923)]

Poem—

January 1st, 1915

Come, fill your cups, the dying year
Shall promptly be forgotten
With such a brew why need we care
For falling price of cotton?

Here's to the New Year's natal day!
What has it in its keeping,
Naught spared from fratricidal fray
But widow's eyes for weeping?

Or peace, and Christian love outpoured
To nurse the maimed and needy,
And plenty, lavishing her hoard
In noble succor speedy?

No matter. Friends still gather round;
Home ties are still unbroken;
Then may the new-born year abound
With blessings yet unspoken!

[Robert Morton Hughes, "January 1st, 1915," in Armistead C. Gordon, Jr., Virginian Writers of Fugitive Verse 314 (New York: James T. White & Co., 1923)]

Writings

Robert M. Hughes, General Johnston (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1893) [online text] (D. Appleton, 1897)

______________, Handbook of Admiralty Law (St. Paul, Minnesota: West Publishing Co., 1901)(2nd ed., 1920) [online text]

______________, Handbook of Jurisdiction and Procedure in United States Courts (St. Paul, Minnesota: West Publishing Co., 1904)(2nd ed., 1913) [online text]

Research Resources

Civil War Documents & Hughes as Social Historian
Perry Library
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, Virginia

Papers Concerning Biography of Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Earl Greg Swem Library
College of William and Mary
Williamsburg, Virginia