Commonness of banjos in the field

[Danny]

How common would it be for a common infantry soldier on the march to have a banjo? There's some evidence in horse sense, understanding army life at the time. Unless you could talk a wagon driver into letting you throw it on the wagon while the unit is on march you sure as heck were not going to add the awkwardly-shaped thing to your personal carry, even though it was relatively light. The boys commonly tossed a lot off to the roadside as they marched, let alone adding a banjo to their load.
If you must have it, you can stretch the meager evidence and claim one of these scenarios: (a) officers were allowed more personal items on wagons, and there are pictures of officers in camp with banjos. (b) winter camps allowed even common soldiers a place for such items as banjos, as did assignment to a veteran reserve unit or a permanent defense works, if your reenactment unit depicts any of those settings. (c) carry a banjo regardless of having an actual citation it was done in your legacy unit, with the reasoning it was at least possible.
That last category is far and away the most common justification banjo players in reenactment units have. That's ok but let's not deceive the visiting public it was truly a common thing, and without evidence let's not talk your unit into it when in reality it's mostly that you just want to do it. It depends on how important authenticity is to you or your unit.

Danny

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Commonness of banjos in the field

The professional musician "Critter" Fuqua, the banjo player for Old Crow Medicine Show, is one of the STRI volunteers and also in the (re)enactment unit with which I fall in from time to time. Critter has a mid-19th century tackhead banjo and will sometimes bring it to play impromptu if the scenario supports it. It is the same banjo that fiddle player Ketch Secor backed over a couple times "with the van" the band used to travel around in before they were popular, so it has had the neck replaced a couple times. The instrument is still sound though and it appears that it plays well, at least in his hands. It is different from the one Critter uses on stage which has frets and steel strings, obviously a period banjo would not be set up that way. And when the camp scenario does support it and Critter breaks it out...well it's quite a treat. No "Wagon Wheel" on the set list, but he has a large repertoire of Civil War songs, as you might imagine.

There is a chapter on the Musical Material Culture of the South in The Unfinished Fight: Essays on Confederate Material Culture. IIRC, officers carried musical instruments like violins, parlor guitars and banjos in their equipment wagon. I believe General JEB Stuart had his own banjo player on staff named Sweeney who was said to be quite proficient with the instrument. No doubt it broke up the tedium of camp life. Sweeney died of smallpox in 1864.

[Spinster]

Re: Commonness of banjos in the field

With a wink and a nod........ Ask Mistah Tackitt how much he had to bribe the Wagon Master to take a banjo in a box on a wagon for a week..... And how much trouble it was to build that box.

It was mighty nice to hear the music though.


;) we just won't talk about the wagon ride that banjo missed one time.

[Silas]

Re: Commonness of banjos in the field

Yes, we still don't talk about that.