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A MUSICAL WAR
By Craig L Barry
By Craig L Barry
Band of the 8th NY State Militia, “Elmira Coronet Band” June 1861 (Image Library of Congress)
“I don’t believe we can have an Army without music.” (Robert E. Lee) [1]
When Civil War soldiers marched off to war, they took a love of music with them. A New York Herald reporter in 1862 noted that “money may be the sinews of war, but music is the soul of Mars.” There is no doubt that military bands played an important role on both sides of the conflict. Bands were a source of pride for any regiments which had them. There is evidence than when instruments were lost or damaged, officers donated funds for replacements. [2] Band music, particularly brass band music was very popular during the Civil War-era. While in camp, buglers sounded out the day with reveille and ended it with taps. On the battlefield the military bands communicated orders from the command structure, as well as provided the music by which soldiers marched off to war. The Elmira Coronet Band pictured above was compromised of men from the town of Elmira, New York who enlisted to accompany the local 33rd New York Regiment.
Army Regulations allowed field musicians to be as young as 12 years old (meaning 9 or 10), while soldiers bearing arms had to be at least 18 years old, at least by the regulations. Brass instruments were being mass produced in the 1860s like muskets, and like muskets with they were made for the first time with interchangeable parts. [3] There were also naturally a large number of drum corps or “sheepskin batteries” but there was no corresponding significant development in drum-making technology during the 1860s. The military drums came in a variety of sizes. Field drums were typically fifteen or so inches in diameter and twelve inches deep. Bass drums were up to twice that size. They were tuned with a rope tension system which can be clearly made out in period images. Army regulations which required that drums be painted blue for infantry and red for artillery orders which were at best only loosely followed. [4] A typical field musician, whether they could read music or not would have a hundred or more musical compositions committed to memory.
Did bands play while the fight was on? This was not uncommon. There are recorded accounts of a Confederate band playing “The Bonnie Blue Flag” across the battlefield at Spotsylvania Courthouse in 1864 while the 10th Vermont brass band answered with “The Star Spangled Banner.” [5] The question sometimes comes up as to under what circumstances bandsmen were issued arms and if they ever fought on the front lines with regular troops. As non-combatants, once the battle casualties began to mount, band members eschewed their instruments and served as litter bearers carrying the wounded to the rear or surgical assistants. One musician of the 87th Pennsylvania recalled assisting the Surgeons in the field hospital as follows:
“It was a gruesome scene, every few moments someone came out of the hospital tent carrying an arm or leg and threw on a huge pile over eight feet high and continued to grow, this pile of limbs to be buried later.” [6]
Since musicians were mostly non-combatants one would expect that they rarely participated in the fighting directly on the battle lines. Hence, there was the issue of honor which particularly affected the participation of musically talented Confederates who might have otherwise served with the band. One Southern soldier noted that “those of our boys who have musical talent refuse to enter the band as they consider it dishonorable to exchange the musket for an instrument as it suggested they desired to shun the battlefield.” [7] If this attitude served to limit the numbers and size of military bands in the Confederate Army it did not affect their enthusiasm if period accounts are to be trusted.
In other cases, there appears to have been a perception in the Confederate command structure that military bandsmen were less important than fighting men. There is the famous anecdote about General D.H. Hill who refused a regimental musician’s request for furlough by saying “shooters before tooters.” [8] This is odd because the Confederate Government gave the field commanders carte blanche to arm the military bandsmen, should they deem it necessary. General James Longstreet noted of General Daniel Harvey Hill, (anecdotally) that he was “harsh, abrupt and often insulting in an effort to be sarcastic.” Who knows? Whatever the case, the issue of frontline military service for musicians was more hotly debated in Union. After all if the musically inclined Yanks took up arms how would they annoy the civilian locals as they marched through occupied Southern towns?
While unusual there were accounts where field musicians were issued muskets and ordered into the battle line. A fifer named Charles Smith with the 32nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry organized at Mansfield, Ohio in September 1861 noted the following in his Civil War diary:
“Wednesday, August 12, 1863: Weather very hot and oppressive. Colonel Potts ordered no more musicians to be reported on the morning report book, unless they belonged to the brass band and that A. C. Cold, drummer of Company I and myself should report to the company for duty. I went down to the Lieutenant's and delivered up my sword, and in its place drew a Springfield Rifle and cartridge box.” [9]
And to clarify the role of buglers… they were musicians but were not considered “military bandsmen” in the same sense of the word. Their "duty post" was with the commanding officer and they sounded the various calls to communicate to the rest of the regiment what troop actions were to be performed. Lastly, a further distinction should be made between the string bands which provided music associated with camp life and the regimental drum and brass bands which played on the parade ground and battlefield. The Official Records of the War of Rebellion records with General Order # 48, dated July 31, 1861 entitled that two buglers per company were authorized along with a band of 16 to 24 military musicians for each regiment. Many letters home from soldiers attest to their appreciation of the bands and their positive affect on the morale of the troops.
Drum Corps, 30th Pennsylvania Infantry, August 1863, (Image Library of Congress)
NOTES
1. Douglass S. Freeman, Biography of Robert E. Lee, Charles Scribner & Sons (New York), 1934, Volume III, Chapter 15, p. 261.
2. Kenneth E. Olsen, Music and Muskets: Bands and Bandmates of the American Civil War, Greenwood Press, (Westport, CT), 1981, p. 16
3. Stephen Cornelius, Music of the Civil War-Era, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2004, p. 180
4. Ibid, p. 182
5. In a letter home Charles George of the 10th Vermont he makes mention of the incident as taking place on May 11, 1864, during the series of battles that made up The Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, which occurred off and on from May 8 to May 21, 1884.
6. James A. Davis (ed), Bully for the Band, McFarland Publishing (West Jefferson, NC), 2012, p. 182. Letter home from Charles Gotwalt, 87th Pennsylvania Brass Band, the timing of the letter suggests this was during the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864.
7. Christian McWhirter, Battle Hymns: The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War, University of North Carolina Press, (Chapel Hill, NC), 2012, p. 131.
8. Ibid, p. 132
9. Charles E. Smith, The American War for the Union: A View From the Ranks, Delaware, Ohio Historical Society, 1999, privately published. See entry for August 12, 1863.
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