Thank you Michael, sounds as if you have the straight information about the subject. I relied upon the following:
1879 Father Ryan's Poems. The Maryland priest and supporter of the Confederacy collects the poems that earn him the titles "the poet of the Lost Cause" and "the Tom Moore of Dixie." Included are the poems "Gather the Sacred Dust," "The Conquered Banner," "The Lost Cause," and "The Sword of Robert E. Lee."
www.answers.com/topic/abram-joseph-ryan
----------
Thus will we respind to the prayer of the dead priest, whose poem, the "Lost Cause", and song of "The Conquered Banner", will mingle harmoniously with the soft, earnest words and sweet, placid tones of his peaceful "Reunited". So the songs of the dead poet will be music to the living until time shall be no more!
www.scvcalifornia.net/FATHER%20AJ%20Ryan.htm
http://www.encyclopediaindex.com/b/fryan10.htm
--------------
The political motivations grew from his efforts after the war to justify and legitimize the ideology of the "Lost Cause." But a gradual but steady sea-change clearly began with his collection of poems.
http://www.crusader.bac.edu/library/rarebooks/Ryanfiles/essay2.htm
--------------
Copy courtesy of Butler Center for
Arkansas Studies, Little Rock.
DAILY ARKANSAS GAZETTE
Little Rock, ARK, Sunday, January 21, 1872, page2, column3
________________________________
---------------------------------
"THE DEAD CONFEDERACY"
Some kind friend has sent us a copy of the London Cosmopolitan of December 21st, with the following notice of one of the fair daughters of Arkansas, and the beautiful poem published on the first page of todays GAZETTE. No higher compliment could be paid to the young authoress, and we have no doubt the many friends of her honored father, who once represented the state in the highest legislative tribunal in the nation, will read with pleasure and delight the high encomium paid her:
In a former number we published a touching poem from the pen of a valued friend, entitled "The Lost Cause" [Father Ryan?] full of interest and breathing a hopeful significance that cannot but have its influence in the quarter where its author's sympathies and many of his tenderest associations lies. We publish this week, in another column, a poem bearing the above title, which has been sent us by the friend above [Father Ryan?] alluded to, with the information that it is from the pen of a daughter of Senator Borland. It is with a feeling of pride and sadness that we present this poem to the British public --- where, although the subject is among the things of the past, its beauty will find a ready appreciation. It is touching, tender, chasie, classic, beautiful. We are glad to take this young author by the hand and welcome her among the ranks of the poets. We regard this poem as one of the finest rhythmic tributes that has yet been paid to the "Lost Cause;" and its sprit of tender resignation, the heart brokenness of its entire utterance cannot but touch the very souls of those whose sympathies and associations induced them to look upon that cause almost as a crime. The devotion of the southern women to the Confederate cause was something exceeding belief, and now that the cause is dead, it will not we hope, challenge unworthy criticism that we seek to snatch this last wail of their sorrow from the dangers of inappreciation and oblivion, and place it, where it ought to be among the lists of those gems of posey which should never be forgotten.
Miss Borland is a native of Little Rock. She is now the wife of an estimable citizen of Memphis. Her first attempt at poetry, when she was but twelve years of age [1860], was published in the GAZETTE. Even at that early age her fugitive pieces were widely copied and favorably commented on by the press.
--------------------
1)- "The Dead Confederacy", no doubt her most famous, written in 1865, when she just turned 17, at Princeton, Arkansas under alias "Violet Lea", later published in London's Cosompolitan, 21 Dec 1871
<http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/tn/shelby/newspapers/thedeadc2nw.txt>
Michael, her father, Solon Borland, died 1 Jan 1864 near Houston with many CSA bonds, which in his will were left to Fanny and her sister. Were they of any value after the war?