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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (38664)	5/31/1999 1:28:00 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

The ditties they chanted would probably be very revealing--does anyone have a source for those? Great thought. I just happen to have "The Civil War Songbook." The introduction says that "the music of the American Civil War has many tales to tell. Its background is implicitly religious, and the combatants never doubt that they deserve God's blessing. It celebrates lofty political ideals: union and states' rights...." It is not until the fourth page of the introduction (big pages -- this is a sheet music sized book) that "emancipation songs" becomes a sub-heading. Here the author says "Although slavery more than anything else touched off the Civil War, emancipation, acccording to hstorians, was at first a military ploy, only later being recongized as the basis for a new social order." The few emancipation songs are subdued, not strident marching and military songs. The most important Union song (and the one you heard incessently if you watched the superb Civil War series on PBS about ten years ago, was it?) is Battle Cry of Freedom. The basic theme is rallying round the flag, the chorus is "The Union forever, Hurrah boys, hurrah! Down with the traitor, up with the Star; while we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again, Shouting the battle cry of Freedom." The only mention of slavery is in the third of four verses, "We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true, and brave, Shouting the battle cry of Freedom, And although he may be poor he shall never be a slave..." In the Battle Hymn of the Republic, it is not until the end of the last verse that we get "as he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free," which may be a reference to slavery or may be a reference to the war generally -- most wars are fought for some version of freedom. In Glory, Hallelujah, ("As Sung by he Federal Volunteers throughout the Union") there is no mention of slavery. Dixie, the Southern marching song, contains nothing of slavery in it. Of the Emancipation Songs, "The New Emancipation Song" and "We are Coming from the Cotton Field" were not written until 1864, three years into the war, and "Glory, Glory (or the Little Octoroon) in 1866, near the end of the war. The earliest "emancipation" song included was written in 1962, in dialect, and runs "Say, darkeys, hab you seen de massa, Wid de muffstash on his face, Go long de road some time dis mornin', Line he gwine to leab de place? He seen a smoke, way up de ribber, Whare teh Link-um gumboats lay; He took his hat, and lef berry sudden, An' I spec he's run away! Chorus: De massa run? ha, ha! De darkey stay? Ho, ho! It mus' be now de kingdom comin', An' de year ob Jubilo!" Hardly a song that soldiers would sing to promote their dedication to fighting to end slavery! This is not by any means definitive, but may be interesting in its own way.