Music of the civil war era

Despite the fact that it appears to chronicle the final phase of the War Between the States, "Kingdom Coming" was written early in 1862 and released on April 23 of that same year, following a week-long promotional blitz by its Chicago publishers, Root & Cady. Given its premier performance by Christy's Minstrels, the song was an overnight sensation. It was as well received by blacks as it was by whites and was said to have been sung by black troops as they marched into Richmond during the final days of the conflict.

"Linkum" is Lincoln rendered in the minstrel-stage black dialect used by Work and others writing for the genre. The mention of massa's being tanned enough to pass for contraband refers to the U.S. Army's wartime policy of treating any blacks who made it to the safety of Union lines as the property the South claimed they were and "confiscating" them as contraband.

This song is also known as "The Year of Jubilo," a Biblical reference to the longed-for day on which all people will be set free.

We’ve arrived at the last newsletter of Civil War song background. This week, I’ll let you have some insight into the solos which will add such color and meaning to our performance.

The poem was based on newspaper reports of "all is quiet tonight", which was based on official telegrams sent to the Secretary of War by Major-General George B. McClellan following the First Battle of Bull Run. Beers noticed that the report was followed by a small item telling of a picket being killed. She wrote the poem that same morning, and she read it in September 1861.[3][4]

In 1863, the poem was set to music by John Hill Hewitt, himself a poet, newspaperman, and musician, who was serving in the Confederate army
One of the most appealing among the hundreds of songs concerning the life of the soldier in the army was "All Quiet Along The Potomac." During the long periods between major battles and campaigns, a soldier's main assignment was the lonely one of picket and sentry duty. The song was based on an actual incident claimed as having taken place during the time of inactivity following the first Battle of Bull Run [21 Jul 1861], while the forces of both sides were gathering strength. For many days the newspapers could merely report in their headlines "All Quiet Along the Potomac," for there were no major battles to describe, and the people were in a tense period of expectation of great events in the future.

According to the story, a Confederate soldier, said to be Lamar Fontaine of the Second Virginia Cavalry, was standing night guard on a lonely outpost with one of his best friends, John Moore. After completing his six-hour assignment, he awakened his sleeping friend to take over. Moore stirred the glowing coals of the fire. The flames which leaped up revealed the position to the enemy pickets stationed on the opposite bank of the Potomac River, and made him a perfect target, framed in the fire's light. The bullet of a Union sharpshooter found its mark in Moore.

As he determined that his friend had been killed, Fontaine's eyes fell upon the headlines of a newspaper lying on the ground: "All Quiet Along the Potomac." The next day he wrote the poem....

So popular was the work, set to music by both Northern and Southern composers, that the commanders of the opposing forces, the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, issued a joint order prohibiting the barbarous custom of picket fire, again exhibiting the powerful influence which a song can exert in times of war.

Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes off tears that are welling,
And gathers his gun closer up to its place
As if to keep down the heart-swelling.
He passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree,
The footstep is lagging and weary;
Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,
Toward the shades of the forest so dreary.

Hark! Was it the night wind that rustled the leaves?
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
It looks like a rifle -- "Ah! Mary, good-bye!"
And the lifeblood is ebbing and splashing.
All quiet along the Potomac tonight,
No sound save the rush of the river;
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead --
The picket's off duty forever.

• 
  "Lorena" was one of the most popular songs in the United States immediately prior to and during the Civil War; based on a true story, its origins are extremely well documented. It started life as a poem by a Presbyterian Minister in Zanesville, Ohio, the Reverend Henry De Lafayette Webster (1824-96); he wrote it in 1856 after family opposition blocked his marriage to nineteen year old Ella Blocksom, who sang in his choir. When the relationship was ended, he resigned his post and shortly met Joseph Philbrick Webster, who set it to music. The heroine was originally called Bertha, but the composer altered this because he needed a three syllabled named. Lorena is an adaptation of Lenore, from the Edgar Allen Poe poem The Raven.
  
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  The line "If we try, we may forget" is taken from Ella's parting letter to Henry. She went on to marry William Wartenbee Johnson, who sat on the Ohio Supreme Court from 1879-86. She is buried in Woodland Cemetery, Ironton, Ohio.
  
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  "Lorena" was popular with soldiers on both sides of the conflict; one Confederate officer even blamed it for the South's defeat, reasoning that it made soldiers homesick and ineffective. It established Webster as a composer, and was his most famous song, although "I'll Twine 'Mid The Ringlets" (better known as "Wildwood Flower") would become a big hit long after his death.
  
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  "Lorena" was first published by H. M. Higgins Brothers of Chicago, in 1857; the Library Of Congress holds a copy printed by J.C Shreiner of Macon, Georgia between 1862 and 1864. It has been published and recorded a number of times since, including a 1950s a cappella arrangement by Ralph Hunter, Robert Shaw and Alice Parker.
  

The paddleboat named for this song now plies the Muskingum River in Ohio, carrying guests on pleasure excursions out of Coshocton.

Parlor song, telling about a soldier who was killed in battle and is on his way to be buried. Written by John Hill Hewitt, born in Maiden Lane NY on 11 July 1801 and died at 89 on 7 October 1890 in Baltimore MD. Also wrote music for All Quiet. So popular the Macon publisher could not keep it in print. Was featured in “Gone With the Wind.”

Yearning to hold him again to her heart;

There he lies-with the blue eyes dim,

And the smiling, child-like lips apart.

Tenderly bury the fair young dead,

Pausing to drop on his grave a tear;

Carve on the wooden slab at his head,

"Somebody's darling slumbers here!"

About a maiden, popular in Civil War – written by W. W. Fosdick words and George R. Poulton music. Elvis Presley performed a derivative adaptation “Love Me Tender.” Stories are told of encampments in which, at night, soldiers from both sides would be singing and harmonizing this song.

They called the song Aura Lee and it was published and copyrighted in Cincinnati in 1861 Although Aura Lee was successful as a minstrel song, it gained unexpected popularity with the trainee soldiers at West Point, where it quickly became a graduating class song and gained new words (by LW Becklaw), soon becoming known as Army Blue. The song was also known later as The Violet and The Girl With the Golden Hair.

Soon after Aura Lee was released, the American Civil War began. Music is often part of war. Certain music gains a special currency among the combatants - and so it was with this conflict. Drums, fifes, fiddles, banjos and brass were played by camp fires, at ceremonies, while marching, and even during battle.

Aura Lee became a favourite for troops on both sides of the conflict. The image of the lovely girl was even added to another war song, The Yellow Rose of Texas: Talk about your Clementine Or sing of Aura Lee.

After the war, Aura Lee was taken up by barber-shop quartets and recorded by many artists, but its military connection still hovered. In the 1936 movie Come and Get It, Frances Farmer sang it as two different characters (she played a mother and daughter) in different voices.
The Invalid Corps

Dating from 1863. Tells the story of a Union conscript rejected due to his health. The rest humorously depicts the group of rejectees. Words and music composed by Frank Wilder. The actual corps, the Veteran Reserve Corps, was created to allow partially disabled soldiers to perform light duty.

A great number of Civil War soldiers were disabled by weapons, disease, and accidents. Initially, the permanently disabled received medical discharges from the army, but later they remained in the service and performed noncombat duties, relieving other soldiers to fight.
        In 1862 the Union army allowed chief medical officers to employ "convalescent wounded and feeble men" as nurses, cooks, and hospital attendants and subsequently to organize them into detachments. Unfortunately, these methods were inefficient, and many convalescents did not return to their combat units when well.
        Therefore, in Apr. 1863 the U.S. War Department created an Invalid Corps of worthy disabled officers and men who were or had been in the army. Ridicule influenced the corps to exchange its sky blue uniform for one similar to those worn by the other soldiers. The corps formed 2 "battalions," the first for those who could bear arms and perform garrison duty and the second for the severely handicapped fit only for hospital service. Late in the war the surgeon general took command of the second battalion. Like the combat units, the Invalid Corps organized officers and men into companies and regiments.
        Renamed the "Veteran Reserve Corps" 18 Mar.1864, it was abolished during summer 1866. Between 1863 and 1866 more than 60,000 individuals served in the organization and performed valuable services, including garrisoning fortifications and quelling an 1863 "Draft Riot" in New York City.
        The Confederacy established an Invalid Corps in 1864, in which officers and men disabled

In the line of duty had to serve if they wished to receive pay. Also, if their physical condition improved sufficiently, they had to return to their combat unit. Unlike its Union counterpart, the Confederate Invalid Corps never organized companies and regiments, but a high percentage of its officers and men did perform worthwhile duties based on their disabilities and army requirements.

"Just Before the Battle, Mother" was written in Chicago in 1864 by George F. Root, perhaps the greatest of all writers of Civil War songs.  Certainly he was the promptest, composing the very first popular song about the war, "The First Shot Is Fired: May God Protect the Right," the day after Fort Sumter was surrendered; the publisher had it in print and on sale the day after that.  He wrote "The Battle Cry of Freedom," also included in Opus 1861, as well as "The Vacant Chair," "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" and over two dozen other Civil War songs, more than any other songwriter.  After the war, some of his tunes were used by others to provide settings for other lyrics, making him the unwitting composer of "Jesus Loves the Little Children," "Hobo's Lullaby," "God Save Ireland," and "Life's Railway to Heaven."

verse of the song were Northern Copperheads, who wished to see the War end through a negotiated pieace and recognition of a new Confederate nation. Astute readers will notice that Root indulged in a bit of shameless self-promotion by mentioning his own “The Battle Cry of Freedom” in the song as well.

This song, which first appeared in the Worcester Spy around Thanksgiving 1861, was written to commemorate the death of Lt. John William Grout of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry, who was killed at the Battle of Ball's Bluff. Although it had been set to music at least once, it enjoyed no success until the famous George F. Root took it in hand and wrote this tune to accompany it. Text was written by Henry Washburn

Lt. Grout's body was recovered on November 5, 1861, after being washed 35 miles back to Washington, D.C. His remains were identified by the name written on his clothing.

The poem that would become the song "The Vacant Chair" was written by H.S. Washburn after the death of Lt. John William Grout of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry at the Battle of Ball's Bluff. Grout was 18 years old and seemed to embody, to Washburn at least, the sacrifice made by so many young men during the soul wrenching Civil War which had only just begun.
When the "boys" marched away in the spring of 1861, many did not realize that they would not return for the holidays with family. It was expected that the war would last only about ninety days, making it a sure thing that they would all be reunited in plenty of time for the annual November feast (by this time a tradition in many families, though not made a national holiday until a few years later when Abraham Lincoln, following the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, proclaimed it such
Prior to that time, however, Henry S. Washburn, in honor of Thanksgiving 1861, wrote a song - "Vacant Chair" - to remind the folks how much they did miss their own Johnny or Willie or Tommy who was not going to join them for the festivities at the end of the War's first calendar year. While the composition was directed towards the families in the North, this piece gained popularity in the South as well; after all, they had their empty chairs, too. Originally, the author was listed only as "H.S.W.," but his identification was soon revealed: an 85-year-old poet from Worcester, Massachusetts
The first verse clearly states that the family will continue to gather together, in spite of the absence of one of their own; but that the missing member will never be forgotten. The use of the "vacant chair" will be a constant reminder of his ethereal presence in the family, in spite of his physical absence. Their regular prayers for his peace by "caressing him" with their words will be a regular way of keeping him ever in their minds. The fact that a short year can bring about so large a change in their lives is a hard thing for the family to process: only the previous year he was with them with his bright eyes and positive attitude. The connection among the family members was as a "golden cord" that was severed with his death. Interestingly, not every version prints the words the same way. In at least one other songbook, the reference in the first verse is to a "golden chord" that is then "severed". This completely changes the meaning, of course, as a "chord" would likely refer to a musical element, not an item (a figurative "cord") that binds a family together. The original sheet music, however, clearly has the word "cord," which makes much more sense, at least to me.

The chorus begins with "We shall meet, but we shall miss him," which has been used as an alternate title for the song. Its second line repeats, "We shall linger to caress him, when we breathe our evening prayer”.