[1] After finishing his studies, Bagby became engaged in editorial work, especially on the Southern Literary Messenger from 1859 to near the end of the American Civil War.

Subsequently, he was made the state librarian and became widely known as a lecturer and humorist, writing under the name "Mozis Addums."

He kept alive the old school of Southern humor, founded by Augustus Baldwin Longstreet and Johnson J. Hooper.

It is a short narrative of a surly, less-than-sophisticated soul, who describes how he was deeply moved by a piano concert.

As the Richmond correspondent of the Charleston Mercury during the Civil War, Bagby covered the politics of the war and made a reputation for Hermes, his pen name, as a fearless writer who would criticize Confederate General Robert E. Lee as easily as Confederate President Jefferson Davis.