The John Harrolson nitre song

[mootpoint]

I have a cousin who is well versed in many different folk songs. I remembered a song she sung via harp many years ago and recently sent her an email asking for information on the song. This was triggered by a discussion regarding cleaning rifles on one of the AC forums in which the author noted that he had found that some soldiers used built-in plumbing to "create water" for cleaning their rifles in the heat of battle. Regardless of that discussion, this was too good not to pass on.

No documentation other than what Ellen has provided below.


Here is her reply:

------------------------------------------------
Ellen Zweifel James December 8 at 5:29pm

Oh, yes, the one that came out of the siege of Selma. This turned up in the Kaiser Medical Foundation Journal (I think) around 1958. During the siege, a town official sought materials for making gunpowder, and published the following notice: "The ladies of Selma are requested to preserve the chamber lye [produced on] their premises, for the purpose of making nitre. A barrel will be sent round daily to collect it." This led to the following lament:

John Harrolson, John Harrolson, you are a wretched creature!
You've added to this bloody war a new and awful feature.
You'd have us think while every man is bound to be a fighter
The ladies, bless the dears, should save their pee for nitre.

John Harrolson, John Harrolson, where did you get the notion
To send your barrel round the town to gather up the lotion?
We thought the girls had work enough making shirts and kissing
But you have put the pretty dears to patriotic pissing.

John Harrolson, John Harrolson, do pray invent a neater
And somewhat more modest mode of making your saltpetre
For 'tis an awful idea, John, gunpowdery and cranky,
That when a lady lifts her shift, she's killing off a Yankee.


The article claims that the song was printed on toilet paper (did that exist then?) and distributed throughout the Confederacy. A copy fell into enemy hands, and this reply made its way back:


John Harrolson, John Harrolson, we've heard in song and story
How through the years, women's tears have moistened fields of glory
But never was it told before amid such scenes of slaughter
Your Southern beauties dried their tears and went to making water.

No wonder Rebel boys are brave - who wouldn't be a fighter
If every time he fired his gun, he used his sweetheart's nitre?
And visa-versa, what could make a Yankee soldier sadder
Than dodging bullets fired from a pretty woman's bladder?

They say there was a subtle smell that lingered in that powder
And as the smoke grew thicker and the din of battle louder
That there was found to this compound one serious objection:
No soldier boy could sniff it without having an erection.


Enjoy! Sorry it took me so long to reply.

--------------------------------------------

[Hank Trent]

Re: The Siege of Selma

No documentation other than what Ellen has provided below.

Been there, reenacted that. :D Here's a cut-and-paste of some background information that I sent out so the civilians of Selma would know why us nitre bureau workers were going around with a handcart and buckets each morning. We collected a fair amount, thanks mostly to Terre Lawson's promotional efforts.

Here's a handy overview of the Selma Arsenal, which was huge and vital to
the Confederacy, and operated right up till the end:

[old link doesn't work, but this one is similar]

It began in the spring of 1862, and by the end of the war, everything from
ships to clothes were produced there for the war effort, and it was spread
out in the north, south and east edges of town. The main arsenal was on the
south, beside the Alabama River. The foundries, warehouses, and powder mill
were on the east end of town, and the nitre works was on the north end
beside the Alabama and Mississippi Railroad.

Soon after the arsenal was established, John Haralson, a local wealthy judge
and lawyer, opened the nitre works as a private enterprise with a government
contract, a patriotic move that also made him some money and kept him from
being conscripted, since he was only in his early 30s. He ran an ad in the
fall of 1862:

-----
Nitre Sheds
I will receive proposals till the 1st of December for the
building of a Nitre Shed and Water Tank in Selma-the shed to be 15x[?]x30,
and covered with inch plank; the Tank to be 10x12x9, the lumber and nails to
be furnished by the Government.
Jon. Haralson, Ag't.
-----

That ad didn't cause any trouble, but the following year, October 1863, when
the Nitre and Mining Bureau was encouraging the use of artificial nitre
beds, rather than just using cave soil, he ran another ad, the infamous one
you may have heard of (link leads to a report of it in a Union paper after Selma fell):

-----
The ladies of Selma are respectfully requested to preserve all their chamber
lye collected about their premises for the purpose of making Nitre. Wagons
with barrels will be sent around for it by the subscriber.
(signed) Jno Haralson
Agent Nitre and Mining Bureau
----

Fellow Selma lawyer Thomas B. Wetmore, who was a little older and a little
less wealthy than Haralson, couldn't resist tweaking his colleage over that
advertisement. Now personally, I think if you have the last name of Wetmore
(and that was his real name), you're not in any position to make fun of
somebody about collecting urine, but what do I know? The famous trilogy of
poems resulted, available online here and lots of places:
http://genforum.genealogy.com/harals...sages/272.html

But that was all back in 1863, and despite the initial humor, the nitre
works kept operating with its nitre beds and leaching operation, and had
grown to "eighteen buildings, five furnaces, sixteen leaches, and ninety
banks [beds]," when the US Army reported what it had capture in April of
1865. The furnaces were for evaporating the leached-out water containing the
nitre from the beds.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[mootpoint]

Re: The Siege of Selma

Thanks for the update and references. Great information!

[Spinster]

Re: The Siege of Selma

Yep, it sure was. It was especially fun to see the look on folks faces when Hank and Mr. Morgan showed up to "collect". The little wagon has never been the same. And I've found a stock of period buckets to be a handy thing on many occassions.

The song is hardly obscure and continued to be well known in these parts. I learned a version of it during the Centennial.

Selma was never truely 'under seige'--railroads ran between there and Bibb Naval Furnace to the north until weeks before war's end. The munitions works commonly experienced shortages of supply, but much of the problem was related to cut lines in other parts of the South and lack of developed natural resouces.

About three years ago, the Federal government returned to the City of Selma a massive naval cannon that was cast there and subsequently lost during the Battle of Mobile Bay. Now installed in downtown Selma, like all good southern cannon, it points...........North. :wink_smil

[MuleyGil]

Re: The John Harrolson nitre song

One of the cannon lathes that was installed at the Selma Works is on display next to Samford Hall at Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama.