returned the favor by toddling about the
family mansion shouting “Jackson!” at the
top of his lungs—an early indication of his
own political instincts.) Orator Bob’s polit-
ical fortunes waned as Jackson lost popu-
larity after his stand against the Bank of
the United States, and he lost his reelection
bid to Whig challenger Bellamy Storer in- Jackson immediately appointed him
U.S. surveyor general, a position previ-
ously held by Robert Lytle’s father.
When Will Lytle was 13, his father died
of tuberculosis; his mother died two years
later of the same disease. As the man of the
house, Will became a father figure for his
two sisters, Josephine and Lily. Both girls
worshiped him, particularly Lily, the
youngest of the children. With the help of
his maternal grandmother, Margaret Lytle,
Will kept the family together, living in the
mansion and staying in Cincinnati to
attend college rather than matriculating at
Princeton, his mother’s choice. After grad-
uating first in his class from Cincinnati
College in 1843, Lytle studied law with his
uncle, Ezekial Smith Haines, one of the
city’s leading attorneys, receiving his law
degree four years later.
By that time, the Mexican War was at its
height, and Lytle enlisted in the army,
where he quickly won election to the rank
of lieutenant in Company L, 2nd Ohio Vol-
unteers. By the time he reached Mexico,
however, the war was already winding
down, and Lytle was denied the opportu-
nity to draw his sword in combat. Instead,
he spent most of his time futilely politick-
ing for a staff position with General
William O. Butler of Kentucky, an old fam-
ily friend who perhaps inadvertently alien-
ated the proud young officer by receiving
him “with a hauteur which I could not
brook even in a Major Genl.” When he
was promoted to captain a few months
later, Lytle observed with some satisfaction
that now he enjoyed a position “which ele-
vates me above [Butler’s] favor or charity ...
he and his staff may both go to the devil.”
Returning home to Cincinnati in July
1848, Lytle resumed his legal practice and
political aspirations. After surviving a
near-fatal case of cholera, he reclaimed the
family legacy by winning election to the
Ohio House of Representatives. “William
H. Lytle—the worthy son of noble sire,”
proclaimed one campaign banner. Another
neatly encapsulated Lytle’s appeal: “Small
in body but big in soul.” To his uncle
Edward Lytle the newly elected represen-
tative promised: “My political career shall
be free from all impurity and have but one
guiding star [,] a sincere and holy ambi-
tion to promote the true interest of the
people.” When Kentucky senator Henry
Clay’s funeral cortege passed through
Cincinnati in July 1852 en route to his
final resting place in Lexington, Lytle was
the youngest man selected to accompany
the procession. Riding a white horse on a
Mexican saddle covered in silver, Lytle
made a striking figure. According to his
sister Lily, “Everyone talked about how
handsome he looked.”
Adding to his romantic image, the gray-
eyed, long-haired Lytle cultivated a city-
wide reputation as a patron of and partic-
ipant in the finer arts. He attended
museum openings, high-flown operas, and
gala society balls, and once took the role
of Hamlet’s ghost in an amateur perfor-
mance of the play. He also became a con-
noisseur of fine wines, some of which were
locally produced in Cincinnati, and devel-
oped, in the careful words of one scholar,
“the gentleman’s weakness for drinking.”
He spent a number of less exalted nights
playing billiards with his friends in the
rough-and-tumble Irish Hill section of
town. Reports of his disreputable conduct,
perhaps planted by political enemies,
appeared in local newspapers, and Lytle’s
Uncle Edward scolded him in a letter: “I
would ten thousand times sooner have
heard of your death. My scorn of rowdy-
ism and vulgar debauchery is and always
has been inexpressible.” Lytle assured his
uncle that the reports of his roistering were
greatly exaggerated.
Part of Lytle’s discontent may have been
the result of a series of romantic disap-
pointments. He showed a certain aristo-
cratic propensity for falling in love with
his cousins, beginning with his first cousin,
Lily Macalester, the daughter of his father’ssister, Eliza. Lily’s father, prominent
Philadelphia businessman Charles
Macalester, opposed the courtship from
the start on the unimpeachable eugenic
grounds that the two were close relatives
in a family plagued by tuberculosis, but he
also found Lytle’s public escapades unac-
ceptable. The couple broke off their two-
year engagement in 1853, and Lytle moved
on to a more distant cousin, Sarah Elisa-
beth “Sed” Doremus, the niece of New Jer-
sey governor (and Lytle kinsman) Daniel
Haines. In early 1855, Lytle asked Sed to
marry him, but she declined. Apparently
expecting to be asked again, she was dev-
astated when her punctilious suitor
abruptly ended the engagement. Lytle
wrote wistfully to his sister Lily, who
rather liked Sed, “Love, that star with me
has set forever.” Sed, for her part, vowed
never to marry before Lytle did—a vow
she would keep for the rest of her life.
From his mother Lytle inherited a love of
poetry, and he began writing verse in his
early teens. His first poem, written in
1840, was “The Soldier’s Death.” His
Mexican War service inspired the poems
“Popocateptl,” “Jacqueline,” and “The
Volunteers.” His best-known poem, which
quickly became one of the most popular
drawing room pieces of the 19th century,
was the lyric “Antony and Cleopatra,”
which Lytle dashed off one afternoon at
his home while recovering from a serious
illness. Its memorable opening line, “I am
dying, Egypt, dying,” became a catch-
phrase in both Northern and Southern
homes during the decade before the Civil
War. After it was published in the June 19,
1858, issue of the Cincinnati Commercial,
Lytle, like the rather more talented Lord
Byron before him, “awoke one morning
to find himself famous.”
Lytle left the state legislature in 1853 to
concentrate on his legal career, joining his
Uncle Ezekial and his good friend Alex
Todd in the law firm of Haines, Todd &
Lytle. He turned down offers to run for
Congress or to serve as President Pierce’s
secretary to Chile. In 1857, he narrowly
missed being elected lieutenant governor
of Ohio, a loss probably attributable to hisCWQ-EW16 William Lytle_Layout 1 10/22/15 2:42 PM Page 74