Italian and African-American musicians perform in the streets; the lilting cadence of a French songstress is heard from a nearby Opera House; a Hungarian bell choir rings from the stage of a small theatre; raucous taverns and lamplit parlors are boisterous with English, Irish and Scottish song; churches ring with hymns from the British Isles, and, if the month is December, there's a heavenly host of German and Austrian tunes, as well.

Musical theme park, right? Nope. Richmond, Virginia, circa 1850. 1

Mid-nineteenth century music evolved from this new world - this Democratic experiment we call America. New songs were often based on Colonial tunes, and Colonial tunes were taken from the dozens of cultures that settled on our shores.

As a result, the music of 135 years ago was as varied in scope as the music of today. But, unlike today's music, it was often the sole source of entertainment.

To show how a typical American song might evolve, take a look at an ancient Scottish tune, "John Highlandman," which began life as a young lady's lament for the death of her warrior love:

At some point during the 18th century, the tune was stolen from "John Highlandman" and given new words, becoming "The White Cockade." In the new version, the lass was no longer willing to stay home waiting for bad news: she prepared to follow her true love to the battlefield:

"The White Cockade" crossed the Atlantic, and during the American Revolution some of its words and most of its feeling were set to a new song: a rollicking marching song called " Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier."

Eighty years later, "Johnny" was brought up for service in the Civil War; but the tune was replaced with a more somber rhythm, reflecting the uncertainty of the times.

The music of the Civil War contains hundreds of examples of similarly evolving songs. Because the roots of American music are so very deep, the history reveals more about ourselves than we realize.

Ask an American youngster to come up with the name of a truly American folk tune, and their apt to say "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Pop Goes the Weasel." But "Yankee Doodle" came straight from England, and "Pop" was "A Deedling Song" from the bonnie shores of Scotland:

They might go on to say minstrel tunes like "Ole' Dan Tucker," "Arkansas Traveler," "Turkey in the Straw" and "Dixie" are all American, but they'd be only half right. They came from African traditions - created by slaves. On a similar note, children also think of the banjo as an American folk instrument, but it was brought over the ocean by west African slaves. 2

The fact is, new Americans alwasy pulled from their past to make themselves feel more at home in their new world. It took time for them to find their own voice and define their new culture.

Fifty years of independence passed before we quit mimicking our ancestors and found ways to blend old cultures with new ideas - and new ideals. It's no coincidence that truly American literature and truly American music were both children of the 19th century.

Music: Good for What Ails You

The politics of the time were fragile, but not nearly as fragile as life itself. 19th century America was obsessed with health, and a host of "How-To" books covered subjects alphabetically from "Accidents in Carriages" to "Wells, Capicity of..." It wasn't long before they decided a key to good health could be found in music.

The 1857 tome Inquire Within; 3,7000 Facts for the People contains this admonition: "It is asserted, and we believe with some truth, that singing is a corrective of the too common tendency to pulmonic complaints. Dr. Rush, an eminent physician, observes on this subject:... [A] music master... informed me that he had known several instances of persons who were strongly disposed to consumption, who were restored to health by the exercise of their lungs in singing." 3

Social Etiquette and Home Culture tells us, "To pause in the day's occupations, and play a sonata of Beethoven, or one of Mendelssohn's lieder, or a bit of Mozart or Bach, or to sing some manly English ballad, or some tender air of Bellini or Gounod, or take part in a good glee, is to the mind like a bath to the tired body - it refreshes and invigorates. The nervous system is happily composed; the imagination gains a fresh activity; the judgement grows clearer; we put on the new man." 4

For many families, supper began with prayer and ended with spiritual music and song. Shape Note Hymns, developed in 18th century New England from English folk music, had had its beginnings in North American churches but quickly moved to people's homes. Incorporating musical counterpoint, dance rhythms, and harmony, the result was a form of accepella music easily read and easily taught. According to Keith Willard (Fasola Home Page), itinerant singing school masters gathered local children for lessons both secular and religious. When these same song masters made their way south, Shape Note hymns were combined with oral celtic folk tunes, and the American folk-hymn was born. 5

Being able to sing and play an instrument was an important part of a young lady's training at the time. Following a dinner party, Miss Leslie's The Behavior Book tells us there would be some time for conversation, and then "... music is generally introduced by one of the ladies of the family, if she plays well; otherwise, she invites a competent friend to commence."6

In one of many such references, Civil War Etiquette: Martine's Handbook & Vulgarisms in Conversation states, "If you are asked by the lady of the house, at an evening party, to sing, and you can really do so well, comply at once; but never sing at the request of another person." 7 Another guide, True Politeness goes a step further, suggesting a young lady "Never exhibit any particular anxiety to sing or play." 8 It was up to the lady to decide what she might sing or play, as long as she avoided "... songs descriptive of masculine passion or sentiments." In a rare bit of exclusion, men were deemed necessary only to stand by and "arrange the music stool, and turn over the leaves." 9

But with the exercise of the ladies' talents came the warning, "...let your performance be brief, or, if never so good, it will be tiresome." 10

Thus music became preeminent in the American family as one of the best means to win spiritual, cultural, and physical improvement.

But with the advent of war, it stepped up to take a unique place in American history: a hope-enducing life line shared by families and soldiers, and, perhaps more importantly, the only thing they still had in common with the enemy.

Battle Hymns

Once a soldier heeded the call and joined the ranks, his life was led about by song. It woke him up and put him to sleep. It caused him to march, to parade, to fight, to celebrate, to mourn, to bury and to rest. The music was most often a bugler's song, of course. Morning reveille was followed by "Breakfast Call," and soon after that the all-important, "Sick Call," to have the boys in need of quinine line up at the surgeon's tent. And then the regimental band would lead the march. In the camps at twilight they paraded to the sounds of the brigade band.

When by the campfires again, the soldiers' own musical instruments, homemade or otherwise, would bring the evening to a close. However, if the boys were lucky of an evening, they might be able to slip away from camp and find themselves in the parlors of friends or new acquaintances listening to the voices of the daughters and wives gathered at the piano.

And then, if they made it back to camp in time, they could hear their day end with the sound of taps.

In January of 1862, Private Oliver Wilcox Norton of the 83rd Pennsylvania wrote home complaining of the lack of the "pure and elevating influence of music... I am passionately fond of music (although a poor singer)," he explains, "and I miss this as much as any one thing. The music of the field is the fife and drum or the brass band, and the songs sung in camp are not all remarkable for beauty and purity."

Don't feel too badly for Private Norton. He fixed things six months later by helping to create the most played tune in American history.

While bivouaced at Harrison's Landing in Virginia, his camp "resting and recruiting from its losses in the seven days of battle before Richmond, General Butterfield summoned the writer [Private Norton], his brigade bugler, to his tent, and whistling some new tune asked the bugler to sound it for him. This was done, not quite to his satifsfaction at first, but after repeated trials, changing the time of some of the notes, which were scribbled on the back of an envelope, the call was finally arranged to suit the general. He then ordered that it should be subsitutted in his brigade for the regulation "Taps" (extinguish lights) which was printed in the Tactics and used by the whole army. This was done for the first time that night. The next day buglers from near-by brigades came over to the camp of Butterfield's brigade to ask the meaning of this new call. They liked it, and copying the music returned to their camps, but it was not until some time later, when generals of other commands had heard its melodious notes, that orders were issued, or permission given, to substitute it throughout the Army of the Potomac..."11

Some months after its creation, a Union officer was trying to officiate the burial of an officer after a day's worth of heavy skirmishing. Protocol required him to fire three shots over the grave, but the fellow was afraid he was so near the enemy it might start another fight. He remembered a beautiful tune he'd been hearing at lights out and asked that tune - Butterfield's "Taps" - to be played instead.

By the end of the Civil War, it became tradition to play taps at every soldier's funeral, and, of course, it's become the tradition at every soldier's funderal sense.

But the bugle's call was by no means the only lasting influence of the Civil War.

John D. Billings in his book, Hardtack and Coffee, said of the Union army, "There was probably not a regiment in the service that did not boast at least one violinist, one banjoist, and a bone player in its ranks." 12 Trouble for Union bands began when, in July of 1862, the Union army passed a law prohibiting the creation of bands below the brigade level. Officers got around this decree as fast as they could, recruiting well-known musicians into their ranks and detailing them as musicians.

Within the Confederate ranks, besides their sanctioned regimental bands, fiddles and banjos brought from home found most favor. However, as supplies dwindled for the Confederate army toward the end of the war, so did the availability of musical instruments, and then the boys improvised with odd contraptions of their own creation. For example, the "cross fiddle" was made from a drum head "nailed over half a whiskey keg with a rough pine neck, and strings and screws accordin'."

Due to the lack of man-power, Confederate band members were often asked to fill in at the surgeon's tent. One musician, Julius Leinbach of the 26th North Carolina, boasted in his diary, "We had considerable experience in giving first aid to the wounded, and I, for one, got myself to believe that I could amputate a man's leg as well as some of the doctors."

And, if musical instruments were impossible to lay hold off, soldiers knew well enough to improvise with vocal chords alone. Glee Clubs spontaneously formed within the ranks. On the way to the Chancellorsville-Gettysburg campaign, a soldier with the Fourteenth Tennessee Infantry recorded the following:

"The time was about one o'clock A.M. Surgeon Wright, riding at the head of his regiment caught the inspiration of the moment, took his flute from his saddle pockets... and electrified his comrades... with 'Home Sweet Home'... Instantly the other members of the Glee Club gathered around him and in subdued tone joined in the chorus. The effect was indescribable. The sweetness and beauty of it all may never be duplicated in song or scene. Then followed 'Annie Laurie,' 'Swanee River,' 'Massa in the Cold Cold Ground,' 'The Old Kentucky Home,' 'Bonny Blue Flag,' and the climax 'Dixie Land.'"

To men on the battlefield, the families left at home, and the homes surrounded by soldiers' camps, music held unequalled power. It is said that Robert E. Lee didn't believe there could be an army without music, and a fact made famous by Shelby Foote was that Lee banned the singing of "Lorena" because of its poor effect on morale.

It was widely rumored every Southern girl with a piano in her parlor knew how to play "Lorena." If she were wise, she knew a host of other sentimental tunes, as well, and put them to good use when the soldiers came home on furlough. When Northern troops came around town, Southern girls played them again... to insult their "guests." In fact, women of the South were known to stand in their doorways and sing "The Bonnie Blue Flag" (the unofficial hymn of the Confederacy) at marching Union troops.

"The Bonnie Blue Flag" was so powerful a form of Union insult that General Butler, in taking over the city of New Orleans, fined any citizen, man, woman or child, caught singing it, whistling it or playing it on any instrument. But Butler went a step further: he had the publisher of the music arrested, the sheet music destroyed, and fined the author $500 for creating the darn thing. 13

One could say (and many have) that Butler was a naturally argumentative man, but it might also be said he understood the powerful undercurrents that could make or break his army's ability to maintain control over a turbulent and angry citizenry.

No doubt with General Butler's help, "The Bonnie Blue Flag" became legend. Southerner Carrie Belle Sinclair took the tune, changed it ever so slightly and created new words to encourage women to grin and bear the dire circumstances of the northern blockade:

Just as they'd sung "The Bonnie Blue Flag," at Union troops, Southern women now sang "The Homespun Dress" to them. Well, according to Glass and Singer's Singing Soldiers: A History of the Civil War in Song, the boys in blue quickly learned it and sang it right back at them but with new and decidedly less glorious words.

Northerners' favorite parlor tunes were "Johnny Has Gone for A Soldier," "The Vacant Chair," and " Just Before the Battle, Mother." But the unofficial anthem of the Union remained "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (for which Southerners had their own verses, of course). 14

But no self-respecting Union sweetheart with a piano in her parlor would also be without the sheet music to "Aura Lea," the Union soldier's sentimental favorite. "Aura Lea" was made famous again this century when Elvis turned it into "Love Me Tender."

But there were other songs meant to lift the spirit: abolitionist songs created by people like the Hutchinson family. The Hutchinsons had a tremendous influence using the by-then tried and true method of putting new words to popular old tunes. What better way to gather a crowd than to stand on a street corner and play "Ole Rosin, the Beau." Then, with the crowd ready for a good show, the Hutchinson's would begin to sing new words: Jesse Hutchinson had rewritten "Ole Rosin, The Beau" to create "Lincoln and Liberty."

The Huthinsons and other Abolitionist singers would also use old hymns, doubling the impact of new words as the tune underscored the righteousness of their cause. 15 "The Abolitionist Hymn" was sung to the tune of "Old Hundredth":

Long before the start of the war, songs were passed from generation to generation whose words were also a call to action - a call to freedom. It was illegal to incite a slave to runaway, so the songs held double meanings for the listener. It was illegal to teach a slave to read or write, so the songs remained written only in the heart - songs such as "Steal Away:"

Music as Plowshare

A riotous song written by Dan Emmett for an 1859 New York minstrel show, "Way Down South in Dixie," had become north and south of the Mason-Dixon line. It happened this way, according to Glass and Singer: soon after the tune's northern premiere, a well-known Conductor of the day presented "Dixie" down south. Forty women sang it as they marched in a New Orleans parade. Almost immediately, the south adopted it for its own. "Dixie" has the interesting history of having found a place in Jefferson Davis's inaugural ceremony while remaining President Lincoln's favorite song throughout the war.

A few days after Appomatox, Lincoln stood on the steps of Jefferson Davis's former home and asked the military band to play "Dixie." 16 A pragmatic man if ever there were one, Lincoln must have realized the country would need to lean on mutual interests in order for reunion to succeed. He also understood, just as Lee had, that something as seemingly innocent as a song could wield an unbelievably powerful force in the souls of men.

Books can summarize Civil War history; the diary of a soldier or a wife will help imagine life during the Civil War, but only 19th century music holds the power to take us back in time, fill us with the same emotions they once felt, and cause us to see this portion of history with entirely new eyes.

Bibliography:

1 Music of the Old South: Colony to Confederacy by Albert Stoutamire, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (1972), pp 179-192.

2 Collier's Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, P.F. Collier, Inc. (1995), p. 559

3 Inquire Within; 3,7000 Facts for the People, by Mr. Jenkins, Garret, Dick and Fitzgerald, NY 1857, p. 152

4 Social Etiquette and Home Culture, Franklin Square Library, By the Lounger in Society, New York (1881), p. 5 (Referenced from From the Ballroom to Hell; Grace and Folly in Nineteenth-Century Dance, by Elizabeth Aldrich, Northwestern Univ. Press, Illinois (1991), p. 127)

5 "A Short Shaped Note Singing History," http://fasola.org/introduction

6 The Behavior Book: A Manual for Ladies, by Miss Leslie, Willis P. Hazard, 1853, p. 312-313 (Referenced from From the Ballroom to Hell; Grace and Folly in Nineteenth-Century Dance, by Elizabeth Aldrich, Northwestern Univ. Press, Illinois (1991), p. 126)

7 Civil War Era Etiquette: Martine's Handbook & Vulgarisms in Conversation, R.L. Shep Pub. (1988) (Reprint of 1864 edition), p. 110

8 True Politeness. A Hand-book of Etiquette for Ladies. By An American Lady. New York; Manhattan Publishing Co., 184_., p. 43 (Referenced from From the Ballroom to Hell; Grace and Folly in Nineteenth-Century Dance, by Elizabeth Aldrich, Northwestern Univ. Press, Illinois (1991), p. 126)

9 Ladies' Indispensable Assistant, New York (1852), (Referenced from The Wonderful World of Ladies' Fashion, Follett Pub. Co., Chicago (1971), p. 31)

10 Ibid, p. 31

11 p. 327, Army Letters, 1861-1865, Oliver Wilcox Norton, O.L. Deming (1903), Chicago.

12 Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, John D. Billings, Pub. R.R. Donnelly and Sons, The Lakeside Press, Chicago (1888). Reprint 1960, Lakeside Classics.

13 Singing Soldiers, A History of the Civil War in Song by Paul Glass and Louis Singer, DaCapo Press, NY (1964)

14 The Civil War Songbook, Dover Publications, Inc. (1977), pp viii

15 Ballads & Songs of the Civil War by Jerry Silverman, Mel Bay Pub., Inc. (1993), p. 68

16 Ibid, p. 41

Sheet Music:

Ballads & Songs of the Civil War by Jerry Silverman, Mel Bay Pub., Inc. (1993)

The Civil War Songbook, Dover Publications, Inc. (1977)