Patriotic
Songs of the War
"The Bonnie Blue Flag," "God
Save the South," "The Battle Hymn of the Republic,"
and "The Battle Cry of Freedom"
By  And
fair the form of music shines, That bright, celestial
creature, Who still, 'mid war's embattled lines, Gave
this one touch of Nature.
These lines, written by Virginia poet John Reuben
Thompson (1823-1873) in , echo the sentiments of no less an
authority than Confederate General Robert E. Lee,
who once remarked that without music, there would
have been no army. The New York Herald agreed
with Lee when, in 1862, a reporter wrote, "All history
proves that music is as indispensable to warfare as
money; and money has been called the sinews of war.
Music is the soul of Mars...."
In his 1966 classic Lincoln and the Music of
the Civil War, Kenneth A. Bernard calls the War
Between the States a musical war. In the years preceding
the conflict, he points out, singing schools and musical
institutes operated in many parts of the country.
Band concerts were popular forms of entertainment
and pianos graced the parlors of many homes. Sales
of sheet music were immensely profitable for music
publishing houses on both sides of the Mason-Dixon
Line.
Thus, when soldiers North and South marched off
to war, they took with them a love of song that transcended
the political and philosophical divide between them.
Music passed the time; it entertained and comforted;
it brought back memories of home and family; it strengthened
the bonds between comrades and helped to forge new
ones. And, in the case of the Confederacy, it helped
create the sense of national identity and unity so
necessary to a fledgling nation.
Bernard writes, "In camp and hospital they sang
-- sentimental songs and ballads, comic songs and
patriotic numbers....The songs were better than rations
or medicine." By Bernard's count, "...during the first
year [of the war] alone, an estimated two thousand
compositions were produced, and by the end of the
war more music had been created, played, and sung
than during all our other wars combined. More of the
music of the era has endured than from any other period
in our history."
A closer look at four of the most significant patriotic
songs to emerge from the War Between the States is
both instructive and entertaining. These songs include
"The Bonnie Blue Flag," "God Save the South," "The
Battle Hymn of the Republic," and "The Battle Cry
of Freedom."
"The Bonnie Blue Flag"
(Click
for music and lyrics)
Next to "Dixie's Land," perhaps no other song was
as well loved by the Confederate soldier as "The Bonnie
Blue Flag." Written by Harry Macarthy (1834-1888)
and sung to the old Irish tune The Irish Jaunting
Car, the song lays out the order of secession of the
States that went on to form the Confederacy.
Macarthy was an English-born vaudeville entertainer
who emigrated to the United States in 1849 and settled
in Arkansas. He billed himself the "Arkansas Comedian"
and traveled widely throughout the South in company
with his wife, Lottie, putting on "personation concerts."
These performances featured Macarthy singing in the
dialect of other cultures, dancing to ethnic-sounding
music, and dressing in flamboyant costumes. Stephen
Currie, in Music in the Civil War, reports
that one of Macarthy's traveling companions during
the war years was a cockatoo who had been trained
to squawk "Three cheers for Jeff Davis!" on stage.
Although some claim that Macarthy was more interested
in attracting audiences and making money than he was
in supporting the Southern cause, his song was nevertheless
an instant hit with Confederate soldiers and civilians
alike. He premiered it during a concert in Jackson,
Mississippi, in the spring of 1861 and performed it
again in September of that same year at the New Orleans
Academy of Music in front of an audience of soldiers
headed for the Virginia front. The response was enthusiastic,
and Macarthy was suddenly in demand as he had never
been before. He traveled throughout the South during
the war years, performing to packed houses of appreciative
listeners, and although he continued to compose patriotic
songs (among them "Missouri and The Volunteer" or
"It Is My Country's Call." "The Bonnie Blue Flag"
was his greatest success.
The New Orleans music publishing house of A.E. Blackmar
issued six editions of The Bonnie Blue Flag between
1861 and 1864 along with three additional arrangements.
The tune was so popular that Union General Benjamin
Butler was said to have arrested and fined Blackmar
for daring to publish it.
"God Save the South"
(Click
for music and lyrics)
If the South can be said to have had a national
anthem at all, it would have been "God Save the South."
Written early in the war by George H. Miles (a Marylander
writing under the pseudonym Earnest Halpin) and set
to music by a composer with the marvelous name of
Charles Wolfgang Amadeus Ellerbrock (the arranger
of "Maryland, My Maryland"), it tempered the martial
spirit of Julia Ward Howe's more famous "Battle Hymn
of the Republic" with the unwavering conviction that
God would come to the aid of the embattled South.
The first song to be published in the Confederacy,
it was published in no fewer than nine editions. The
first Southern publication was by A.E. Blackmar in
New Orleans, followed by printings in Charleston,
South Carolina; Macon and Savannah, Georgia; another
New Orleans printing by a different house; and two
in Richmond, Virginia.
The song showcases the South's strong sense of identification
with Virginian George Washington, who was seen as
a rebel by the British Crown during the American colonies'
revolt against England. It echoed the belief of many
Southerners that the War Between the States was the
Second American Revolution.
Rebels before, our fathers of yore. Rebel's
the righteous name Washington bore. Why, then, be
ours the same, The name that he snatched from shame,
Making it first in fame, foremost in war.
Although many Southerners argue that Daniel Emmett's
minstrel tune "Dixie's Land" deserves to be known
as the Confederate national anthem, Richard B. Harwell
points out in his 1950 publication Confederate
Music that the song "can hardly be said to meet
the requirements of a national anthem, [although]
it has become a truly national tune, permanently enshrined
in the hearts of Americans in both the North and the
South." That honor rightly belongs to "God Save the
South" not just by virtue of its status as the new
nation's first published song but also because of
its stirring poetry and its outstanding musical setting.
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
(Click
for music and lyrics)
Of all the songs written during and about the War,
perhaps none is as strongly identified with the Union
cause today as Julia Ward Howe's stirring "The Battle
Hymn of the Republic." For over 138 years this song
has been a fixture in patriotic programs and is still
sung in schools and churches across the nation.
In the early days of the War, the song "John Brown's
Body" was wildly popular. Although in its original
incarnation it had nothing to do with the notorious
abolitionist leader hanged at Harpers Ferry on December
2, 1859, it became inextricably identified with him
and acquired new verses that were sung by Federal
troops and Union sympathizers alike. The tune was
borrowed from an old Methodist hymn, "Say, Brothers,
Will You Meet Us?" by William Steffe.
In November of 1861, Julia Ward Howe, the daughter
of a well-to-do New York City banker, was touring
Union army camps near Washington, D.C. with Reverend
James Freeman Clarke and with her husband, Dr. Samuel
Gridley Howe, who was a member of President Lincoln's
Military Sanitary Commission and a fervent abolitionist.
During the course of their camp visit, the group began
to sing some of the currently popular war songs, among
them "John Brown's Body." In one of those rare flashes
of inspiration that leave their mark on the history
of a nation, Reverend Clarke was moved to suggest
that Mrs. Howe pen new lyrics to the familiar tune.
She replied that she had often thought of doing just
exactly that.
The following morning, as Mrs. Howe later described
it, she "awoke...in the gray of the early dawn, and
to my astonishment found that the wished-for lines
were arranging themselves in my brain. I lay quite
still until the last verse had completed itself in
my thoughts, then hastily arose, saying to myself,
'I shall lose this if I don't write it down immediately.'"
Mrs. Howe's lyrics first appeared on the front page
of the Atlantic Monthly in February of 1862. Editor
James T. Fields, who paid her $5 for the piece, is
credited with having given the song the name by which
it is known today.
After the War, Mrs. Howe was active in the women's
suffrage movement. In 1868, she founded the New England
Women's Club and was one of the founders of the New
England Women's Suffrage Association. She was much
in demand as a lecturer. Although she continued her
writing, nothing she produced ever achieved the popularity
of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." She died October
17, 1910, at the age of 91.
"The Battle Cry of Freedom"
(Click
for music and lyrics)
Although "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is today
considered the preeminent Northern War song, Union
soldiers were more likely to bestow that honor upon
"The Battle Cry of Freedom." Willard A. and Porter
W. Heaps, writing in The Singing Sixties, call
"The Battle Cry of Freedom" `the type of rousing tune
which appears seldom during a period of war and but
once in a generation."
 Composed
in haste in a single day in response to President
Abraham Lincoln's July 1862 call for 300,000 volunteers
to fill the shrinking ranks of the Union Army, the
song was first performed on July 24 and again on July
26 at a massive war rally. Composer-lyricist George
F. Root recalled years later, "From there the song
went into the army, and the testimony in regard to
its use in the camp and on the march, and even on
the field of battle, from soldiers and officers, up
to the good President himself, made me thankful that
if I could not shoulder a musket in defense of my
country I could serve her in this way."
A Massachusetts native, Root had shown remarkable
musical abilities from an early age, mastering no
fewer than thirteen instruments by the age of 12.
Primarily a vocal instructor, Root eventually began
composing, writing in the classical genre. He was
a founding partner in the Chicago-based music publishing
firm of Root and Cady.
When the War Between the States broke out, Root
began to write inspirational songs for the Union war
effort. Although his earlier attempts at popular pieces
had so embarrassed him that he signed them with the
name "Wurzel" (German for "root") so as not to compromise
his reputation as a serious composer, he now showed
no hesitation in turning out song after song. Other
works such as "Just Before the Battle, Mother" and
"Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" quickly established him as
perhaps the most popular and certainly the most prolific
of wartime composer/songwriters.
Public response to "The Battle Cry of Freedom" was
overwhelming. When the sheet music was published that
fall, fourteen printing presses working round the
clock were unable to keep up with the demand for copies.
Between 500,000 and 700,000 copies were produced.
What made Root's song so compelling? According to
Kenneth A. Bernard, author of Lincoln and the Music
of the Civil War, the tune appeared at just the
right time, "expressing just the sentiments that were
needed, with music that was singable and words that
were appropriate" and played "an immeasurably important
part in restoring and sustaining morale at home and
at the front throughout the entire war."
A measure of the song's success can be seen in the
flurry of imitations that appeared soon after its
publication. William H. Barnes, the manager of the
Atlanta Amateurs,a group of volunteer musicians who
performed for the benefit of various soldiers' relief
funds, penned a set of Confederate lyrics that were
adapted to Root's tune (with some rhythmic changes)
by composer Hermann L. Schreiner. Another knock-off,
"Rally Round the Flag," had mundane lyrics and was
produced by James T. Fields and William B. Bradbury.
References
- Bernard, Kenneth A., Lincoln
and the Music of the Civil War, Caxton Printers,
Caldwell, Idaho, 1966.
- Currie, Stephen, Music
in the Civil War, Betterway Books, Cincinnati,
Ohio, 1992.
- Harwell, Richard B., Confederate
Music, University of North Carolina Press,
Chapel Hill, N.C., 1950.
- Heaps, Willard A. and Heaps,
Porter W., The Singing Sixties: The Spirit
of Civil War Days Drawn from the Music of the
Times, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman,
Okla., 1960.
|
