Rebel Songs in Federal Camp

[AZReenactor]

Re: Rebel songs in Federal camp

Michael, I for one think you are right on target.

Mel, I think most folks realized your rhetorical question didn't require an answer. ;-)

I have to agree on the power of searching online resources. The ability to not only search an index but to seach OCRed text line by line is extremely useful and effective, especially when coupled with more traditional forms of research as well.

No, Danny -- if I understand the moderators (and yes, they've set me straight a few times), research and documentation aren't really open for debate here.

The immediate question is the topic "Rebel songs in Federal camp," including the post in which you named two of them, and your subsequent desire to talk about documentation in the abstract, rather than whatever specific documentation you have for those songs.

I'm not going off topic. I'm asking you, for the third time now, a direct question about that topic.

I've pretty much given up expecting an answer, but I admit to a morbid curiosity about how long you can keep avoiding it.

[Danny]

Re: Rebel songs in Federal camp

...For topics that were spoken about in the period, google books (and similar sites like the MOAs, Documenting the American South, all the original newspapers online, and so forth) gives a better broader quicker overview than most anything else. For things that weren't talked about by the average person, like specifics in the construction of artifacts, there are better sources including the artifacts themselves. And of course specific books that aren't online yet need to still be tracked down in hard copy, as well as letters and manuscripts and lots of local original material. Hank Trent

Exactly on point, thanks for your input Hank.

I want to explore in particular your statement "there are better sources including the artifacts themselves." True enough if you consider that with traditional songs the subject and setting are often very detailed and the best indication we have of their provenance - these songs and ballads include real names, specific geographic locations, actual sequence of events, and articles of vivid detail that you would expect a participant or observer close to the event would have. The only other scenario would be that that an unassociated author began channeling a stream of original verse about an event decades in the past, (their own current events not inspiring enough) and yet not for the purpose of publishing, which would at least provide a profit motive if they were able to do it. You can't copyright a tune in public use already.

At least some respected researchers have found that the subject and detail of traditional songs give them the provenance to the period they depict, for instance and for Michael:

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I will not promote that approach as a proper justification for us to sing these songs in camp, but it's not impossibly stupid approach either. I will miss these songs, but as Michael pointed out there are plenty more songs with AC acceptable provenance, and we don't even have to prove they were actually sung, only that they were available.

I've not gotten any answers on "Shenendoah" - is it in or out?

Dan Wykes
Fat Neck Mess

[Hank Trent]

Re: Rebel songs in Federal camp

The only other scenario would be that that an unassociated author began channeling a stream of original verse about an event decades in the past, (their own current events not inspiring enough) and yet not for the purpose of publishing, which would at least provide a profit motive if they were able to do it. You can't copyright a tune in public use already.

I'm not quite sure I'm following what you're saying in the paragraph above, but another explanation would be that songs which were very minor and local in the period were picked up and made famous in a later period, and therefore are well known today but were so obscure as to be virtually unknown in the period. They would be like jaguar skinned trousers, literally and figuratively: more reenactors have heard about that poor fellow's trousers today than ever did in the period.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Rebel songs in Federal camp

True enough if you consider that with traditional songs the subject and setting are often very detailed and the best indication we have of their provenance - these songs and ballads include real names, specific geographic locations, actual sequence of events, and articles of vivid detail that you would expect a participant or observer close to the event would have. The only other scenario would be that that an unassociated author began channeling a stream of original verse about an event decades in the past, (their own current events not inspiring enough) and yet not for the purpose of publishing, which would at least provide a profit motive if they were able to do it.

I think another possibility (and this isn't another attack, just an observation) is simple nostalgia.

Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans" comes to mind as one example of a song about a historical incident that has no historical provenance at all. The '60s pop tune "Bonnie and Clyde" is another. What Martin Mull referred to as "the great folk song scare of the '60s" provided many, many examples of anachronisms evoking earlier eras and the supposed associated virtues. Sometimes people sang them commercially for money, but quite often they just wanted to celebrate some imagined aspect of an idealized past. Or get laid.

The period of the civil war provided its own examples. In literature we had Sir Walter Scott's medieval fantasies, Alexander Dumas' tales of derring-do from the 17th century, and James Fennimore Cooper's frontier stories (that Mark Twain so loved). In music the Rakoczy March comes to mind -- that actually was traditional, but Berlioz's treatment was radically modern. Unfortunately, Liszt's is Indian Wars. :(

Closer to home, there's "Hell on the Wabash", which might or might not date to the actual battle, but certainly dates to the Civil War.

It's tempting to give a lot of credence to a work that's anonymous and labeled "traditional." But because the Civil War -- our national epic -- already bears considerable nostalgic and hagiographic freight added after the fact, I think we need to be especially careful about adding more. That's especially the case if our goal is to find the truth under all the previous layers of romanticization.

So, anyway, as I see it, anachronisms aren't in and of themselves wrong -- they just need to be period anachronisms. :)

As for "Shenandoah," I haven't found anything before the 1920's. If you can, more power to you.

[Danny]

Re: Rebel songs in Federal camp

...another explanation would be that songs which were very minor and local in the period were picked up and made famous in a later period, and therefore are well known today but were so obscure as to be virtually unknown in the period... Hank Trent

Understood. I would add though the caveat that chantys, work songs, and spirituals were not created in obscure (leopard skin) contexts at the time of their creation. They were created, and actually were only relevant in, group experience: a tall ship's crew, dock workers loading cotton bales, slave prayer meetings. These songs had a purpose other than light entertainment in these classically Antebellum settings, a purpose a later author could only get second-hand, if they were interested enough to get it so exactly right. Goes to plausibility.

That being said, if we must abandon such songs, even if commonly heard on the field today or in recordings of so many Civil War bands, than so be it. Let us be encouraged that there are other songs of identical origins, even content, spared by virtue of a period mention or two, that we do have.

Are we about to lose Shenendoah as well then?

Dan Wykes
Fat Neck Mess

[J. Donaldson]

Re: Rebel songs in Federal camp

Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans" comes to mind as one example of a song about a historical incident that has no historical provenance at all.

Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans" is based on "Eighth of January" also known as "Jackson's Victory", with the possibility that the tune predates the battle, as noted here: Scroll to Eighth of January. According to the Berea website it is also known as "Durang's Hornpipe". The Library of Congress has the sheet music for "Hurra for General Jackson" that, in my mind, fits the meter of the tune in question, and though undated, is a campaign song. Hurra for General Jackson

In the Library of Congress's "Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection" the history of the song is given as "British Field March" with a history dating to the 18th century. British Field March

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Rebel songs in Federal camp

That's great! It's not as much fun without the alligator though :)

[MBBursig]

Re: Rebel songs in Federal camp

"Morgenrot" is waay under-represented...

http://ingeb.org/Lieder/morgenro.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMf-VI2aRbU

Thanks for the link! I would love to hear this more often at events as well...

-MB

[Liberty Hall]

Re: Rebel songs in Federal camp

I have recently been doing some research on the music enjoyed by post-war homesteaders in the Northwest and have been quite surprised at the popularity of many Southern songs...and this coming from Northern families!


Andy Wildman

[kw1861]

Re: Rebel songs in Federal camp

Gentlemen,
Please excuse me if this has been discussed and answered before. But does anyone know of any period accounts of the so called 'Union Dixie' being sung during the war? I'm referring to the lyrics Tennessee Ernie Ford sang years ago. Or were those lyrics written by him? Thank you in advance.

[Palmyra Possum]

Re: Rebel songs in Federal camp

Glad to see this thread pop up. Not one I’ve stumbled across before. I noticed no one ever responded to Dan Wykes request for “documentation that ‘Shenandoah’ was actually sung by soldiers on campaign.”

I would love to say there was plenty. It’s a beautiful song and it’s easy to pick out on a harmonica (I know, but what can I say? My first exposure to the war was Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color episodes made about the time of the centennial.). Unfortunately, I can’t.

The first published set of lyrics to the song was in the April, 1876, edition of a Canadian publication, The New Dominion Monthly (page 262), and the song was called Shanadore. One history on Shenandoah states that the author of this article stated he heard this song in 1850. However, if the author made that claim, it wasn’t in this article. While the music is similar to what we would expect today, the lyrics are quite different than we usually hear today, with only the first line changing between the verses.

The first publication of it as Shenandoah that I’m aware of wasn’t until the 1910 book, Ships, Sea Songs and Shanties by W.B Whall, published in Glasgow (page 1; attachments are from the 1913 3rd edition). The author of the book claims he heard the song for the first time about fifty years earlier, which would put it at the start of the war.

So, to summarize:

Did the song exist during the Civil War? Yes, with a similar tune, but with different lyrics than are typically known today.

And the million dollar question…

Was the song popular enough among the soldiers to warrant it being sung at reenactments? I’ve seen nothing to support that contention.



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As for Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Union Dixie,” I can’t comment on whether the exact lyrics were sung during the war. Here’s version that appeared in the June 14, 1862 edition of the Washington Standard that had a similar opening line. Also, Fanny Crosby’s version, from 1861, is attached.

[Jubilo]

Re: Rebel songs in Federal camp

Most hobby fellers are not musically inclined. Playing the other side's songs would not be approved of or should it be done in an "immersive " event. Many non- campaigners get together and just try to enjoy themselves after hours with various forms of music but disregard historical intent. During the war soldiers would just sing together like a glee club. Who has ever witnessed that in any event? Modern folks just aren't singers or as musical as our forefathers,