Sidney Lanier was a poet from Georgia who was born in Macon in 1842. After graduating from Oglethorpe University in 1860, he served as a private in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Following the war, Lanier, an accomplished flutist, played for the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Baltimore and published some of his most famous poems, such as "The Marshes of Glynn". Lanier died at the ripe age of 39 due to tuberculosis he had contracted while he was a prisoner of war. After his death, he was honored with numerous memorials, such as in the name of Lanier County, Georgia and Lake Lanier.
