CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY MUSIC Cornell University Library ML 3551.B88 The story of our national ballads, 3 1924 017 746 896 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924017746896 "YANKEE DOODLE " From the painting by A. M. Willard THE STORY OF OUR NATIONAL BALLADS BY C. A. BROWNE ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY PUBLISHERS OOFTBIGHT, 1919, BT THOMAS T. OROWEIiL COMPANY SeCOITD THOTTBAm) TO G. T. B. AND G. R. E. CONTENTS PAGE Yankee Doodle i Hail Columbia 29 The Star-Spangled Banner 47 America 69 Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean 87 OixiE 97 Maryland, My Maryland 109 The Battle Cry of Freedom 115 4oHN Brown's Body 127 *attle Hymn of the Republic i47 We Are Coming iS9 Marching Through Georgia ....... 177 Occasional Songs i97 Spanish War Songs 205 Songs of the Great War — British 213 Songs of the Great War — American .... 223 YANKEE DOODLE YANKEE DOODLE Fath'r and I went down to camp, Along with Captain Good'in, And there we saw the men and boys As thick as hasty puddin'. CHORUS Yankee Doodle keep it up, Yankee Doodle dandy, Mind the music and the step. And with the girls be handy. And there we see a thousand men. As rich as Squire David; And what they wasted ev'ry day, I wish it could be saved. And there was Captain Washington Upon a slapping stallion, A giving orders to his men; I guess there was a million. And then the feathers on his hat, They looked so very fine, ah! I wanted peskily to get To give to my Jemima. And there I see a swamping gun, Large as a log of maple, IJipon a mighty little cart; A load for father's cattle. And every time they fired it off. It took a horn of powder; It made a noise like father's gun. Only a nation louder. And there I see a little keg, Its head all made of leather. They knocked upon't with little sticks, To call the folks together. And Cap'n Davis had a gun. He kind o' clapt his hand on't And stuck a crooked stabbing-iron Upon the little end on't. The troopers, too, would gallop up And fire right in our faces; It scared me almost half to death To see them run such races. It scared me so I hooked it off. Nor stopped, as I remember, Nor turned about till I got home. Locked up in mother's chamber. YANKEE DOODLE Little by little, Music has grown to be a vital factor in army life; a military necessity to sol- diers on the march. Their leaders have discov- ered that a singing army is a cheerful army ; and a cheerful army is invincible. In an official bul- letin, a commanding officer at one of the great camps has this to say: "While marching, noth- ing will so effectively keep up the spirits of the men, and prevent them from straggling, as the singing of marching songs. The soldier's mind is thus stimulated; and instead of thinking of the weight of his equipment, or his physical wear- iness, he develops a dogged and cheerful deter- mination." It has become apparent to those in authority that "there is nothing in the world, not even letters from home, that will raise the soldiers' spirits like a good, catchy marching tune." Singularly enough, no one of the great Na- tional Hymns has been written by a great poet. And but rarely has a trained musician created the music to a National Song. 3 4 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS No man can say what will give vogue to a pop- ular song; for it is impossible to foretell what may appeal to the fickle fancy of the public. This renders the ordinary popular songs as uncer- tain as anything in life ; and when you add to this, the fact that National Songs are necessarily the result of national storm and stress, it follows in- evitably that a National Song is one of those things which can neither be planned ahead, nor made to order. In the beginning, when our plucky Thirteen Colonies decided to break away from the Mother Country, and start out on life as a separate Na- tion, we had no Song, — and no Flag, — ^that we could call our own. Yet, at this date, to tell the Story of Our National Songs, is to put the his- tory of our country in a nutshell. For every period of that history has brought its own individ- ual music with it; consequently, the annals of America are embodied in her patriotic ballads, to a far greater degree than those of any other land seem to be. During the Revolution, we acquired "Yankee Doodle." In fact, it is our one song legacy from the Revolutionary War ; and while it may not be a treasure of the highest value, it absolutely be- longs to us, — is public property, and has its pe- YANKEE DOODLE 5 culiar place. For its quaint, incisive character redeems it from vulgarity; and its historic asso- ciations are woven and interwoven with the estab- lishment of American Independence. Although it was known, to some extent, on this side of the water, since the old days of the French and Indian War, a special interest attaches to the fact that it began, and it ended, the Great Drama of the American Revolution; a drama which opened in New England, — culminated in New York, — and closed in Virginia. These three colonies were, each in turn, the chief seat of war. George William Curtis exclaims, "Paul Revere's lantern shone through the valley of the Hudson, and flashed along the cliffs of the Blue Ridge!" Strange to say, "Yankee Doodle" changed sides during the conflict. From being a British tune at the beginning of the struggle, it emerged as a severely American melody, at the close. The earlier history of the air is shrouded in mystery ; many countries having laid claim to all, or to fragments of it. The tune of "Yankee Doodle," like the story of the flood, appears to flourish in the myths of every nation. The word "Yankee" is probably an Indian corruption of the word English; though the term is still a bone of con- 6 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS tention among the etymologists. But they agree that "Doodle" means a trifling, half-witted fel- low. During Revolutionary times, the word "Yankee" was used as an especially insulting term. During the Boston Massacre, the British commanding officer took great pains to shout it at the crowd of citizens, — this and various other choice epithets. And the song itself was dis- tinctly against the Americans, at first. While we were still in the colonial times, dur- ing the French and Indian war. General Amherst had under his command an army composed of both regular, that is to say, English, and provin- cial troops. And during the summer of 1755, this conglomerate army lay encamped upon the eastern bank of the Hudson, a little south of the city of Albany, — which was also semi-rural, then. In the early part of June, company after com- pany of the eastern troops (militia) began to pour in; and such a motley assemblage of men never before had thronged together, on such an occa- sion; according to an old letter written at that time. The writer further relates, that "it would have relaxed the gravity of an anchorite, to have seen these descendants of the Puritans, making their way through the streets of our ancient city, to take their station at the left of the British YANKEE DOODLE 7 army." "Quaint and ludicrous," comments an- other letter-writer, "was the appearance of these raw American volunteers, as they came into camp ; some in black suits, some in blue, and some in gray. Some of them had long coats, some short ones, and some had no coats at all. Some had long hair, some short ; and some wore enor- mous wigs. Their march, their great variety of accoutrements, and the whole arrangement of their troops, furnished altogether a good deal of sport for the regular British troops." Still another account, in the same strain, ad- mits that the fantastic appearance of the colonial contingent, with their variegated, ill-fitting and incomplete uniforms, was a continual butt for the broad humor of the army. Among these make- games, who were with the forces of General Am- herst, when the New England troops under Gov- ernor Shirley came in, there was a certain regi- mental surgeon. Dr. Richard Shuckburg, who, in a spirit of sarcasm, played what he considered a master-good joke on the ragged, tattered Conti- nentals, by palming off on them the "Nankee Doodle" tune, of Cromwell's time, as one of the most celebrated airs of martial music. This old English melody was probably a country dance; but Dr. Shuckburg set to it the words of an ab- 8 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS surd song which he called "The Yankee's Return to Camp." It begins, "Father and I went down to camp, Along with Captain Gooding. There we see the men and boys, As thick as hasty pudding." Quite unsuspecting, the guileless, awkward Continentals swallowed the whole thing, hook, bait and line. The joke spread like wildfire; far beyond the scoffer's fondest hopes. In the course of a few days, nothing was heard in the provincial camp but "Yankee Doodle." The British corps were highly entertained ; never dreaming that the sport was destined to prove an unwelcome boom- erang, twenty years later, when some of those same ridiculed militiamen marched to victory at Lexington, to the strains of this much laughed-at tune, which had developed into the battle song of the New Republic. The perpetrator of the satire did not live to witness that part of the game ; as he died at Schenectady, in 1773. Thomas Jefferson often said that Washington was the greatest horseman of his time. It trans- pires, that on June 30, 1775, when General Wash- ington left Virginia, to assume command of the Continental Armies, then encamped at Cam- bridge, Mass., he took with him, five horses of his YANKEE DOODLE 9 own breeding; his favorite being a magnificent bay, sixteen hands high. On his first appearance at Cambridge, mounted on this splendid animal, he enthused and charmed not only the J^rmy, but also the mixed throng of revolutionary patriots gathered there, to greet for the first time, the hero of the epoch. This bay was probably the "slap- ping stallion" mentioned in the third stanza of "Yankee Doodle" ; the words of which have been described as little more than meaningless dog- gerel, little known now. Boston, today, is considered the most conserva- tive city, politically speaking, in the entire United States; but during the Revolutionary days, she was the leader of her sister towns. It was 1822 before Boston Town developed into a city. At the close of the Revolution, the population of the whole United States did not number quite four millions. There were at that time but six cities, so-called; and in those six cities there dwelt 130,- 000 persons. When Benjamin Franklin trav- elled by coach, from Philadelphia to New York, the journey took four days, and the author of "Poor Richard's Almanac" knitted stockings to while away the time. What Boston lacked in size, she more than made up in zeal. Strong in the courage of her convictions, she tolled her 10 OUR NATIONAL BALI church-bells, and half-masted her fi ^ ,.iien t e news of the passage of the Stamp Act reached America. The Mother Country was convinced that Boston would bear watching; in consequence, beginning with 1768, when the old State House was occupied by a Royalist regiment, the Briti. • troops were encamped at Boston, during se^ teen long, weary months ; among a population to whom they were thoroughly odious. Each suc- ceeding day gave rise to new occurrences which augmented the mutual animosity, and it is re- markable that the grave crisis was so long de- layed. We are indebted to old letters and diaries for the most accurate knowledge obtainable, of the interior life of Boston, at this juncture. John Andrews, a lively merchant, relates that it was customary for the soldiers to fire at a target fixed in a stream, at the bottom of the now historic Boston Common. And he goes on to say, "A few days ago, a countryman stood by, and laughed very heartily, at a whole regiment's firing, and- not one being able to hit the mark. The officer, nettled by his mirth, invited him to try his hand. He accordingly loaded, and asked the officer where he was to fire. According to direction, he pulled the trigger, and drove the ball as ordered. iOAJ YANKEE DOODLE ii irifTo ft*f^ ,ev^t,' To the left,' and the third time, 'In the center.' The officers stared, as well as the soldiers. 'Why,' said the countryman, 'I've got a boy, at home, that will toss up an apple, and shoot aout all the seeds as it's comin' daown.' " riai This story tallies with many other accounts f^'wen of the marvelous skill of the colonists. liJred as they were, to all manner of hardships and dangers, from infancy, this backwoods experience had made them very ready with their fowling- pieces and matchlocks. Being thus ridiculed, and made to feel they had no business in Boston, was not at all to the taste of the royal troops. So the soldiers took revenge in any way that lay at their disposal ; and made it a point to annoy the citizens, to whom their very presence was an insult. Well knowing the decorous piety of many of the Bos- tonians, these soldiers proceeded to race horses on the Common, of a Sabbath Day; and to play "Yankee Doodle," just outside the church doors, during the divine service. - The word "Yankee" always stood for impu- dence ; and from the beginning of the trouble, the British began to sing "Yankee Doodle," in mock- ery of the Americans. As early as 1768, it was played also, aboard the British ships, in Boston Harbor. 12 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS Such like doings were infinitely tantalizing to the already over-tried populace; for it was an intensely self-respecting, God-fearing community: Breach of the Sabbath was regarded as a heinous ofifence; and "prophane cursing and swairing" were included among the serious crimes; as the court records show. In those vexatious days, it was a British cus- tom to drum culprits out of camp, to the tune of "Yankee Doodle." A little later on, we find their soldiers making ribald verses to the melody, and singing— "Yankee Doodle came to town, For to buy a firelock ; We will tar and feather him. And so we will John Hancock." John Hancock, after graduating from Har- vard, had entered the counting-house of an uncle; and upon the death of his relative, he re- ceived a large fortune. Standing thus, almost at the head of the merchants of Boston, his wealth, culture, and good looks made him an ob- ject of flattery. Upon a recent visit to England, he had been strongly urged to join the royal party ; but the counsels of Samuel Adams had a still more powerful effect. Thanks to his influence, the handsome young merchant could say, regard- YANKEE DOODLE 13 less of his princely residence, and all else, "Burn Boston, and make John Hancock a beggar, if the public good requires it." It was not long after this, that by a strange de- cree of fate, the whereabouts of these two firm friends chanced to be responsible for that first brush of hostilities which we know as the Battle of Lexington. After the Boston Massacre, which occurred in front of the old State House, on March 5, 1770, things went from bad to worse. The Provincial Congress, which met at Cambridge, February i, 1775, proceeded to or- ganize the militia, and to appoint general officers. The Minute Men were picked men from the mi- litia ; set apart, and pledged to assemble at a mo- ment's warning. In other words, "The Minute Man of the Revolution was the husband and fa- ther, who left the plow in the furrow, the ham- mer on the bench ; and kissing wife and children, marched away to die, or to be free. He was the old, the middle-aged, and the young." The elder citizens had been all too familiar with the war-cry of the early days ; and the fire- side tales were those of personal sufferings in the Indian troubles, and French wars. No fairy stories found listeners in these homes. The pine torch was lighted, a-many a time, so that the 14 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS little hearers might see for themselves such en- tries as this, in the family record of the well- worn Bible: "Killed at Crown Point"; "Died at Champlain" ; "Killed by Indians at Fort George." From the times of Captain John Smith and Captain Miles Standish, there had been handed down that practical training in arms, and light- ning preparation against surprise and attack, transmitted from the days when homes were but clearings in the forest ; and music, the bay of the roaming beasts ; and safety, the mercy of the In- dian's knife. One-fifth of all the able-bodied men of Massa- chusetts had been in the field, during the French and Indian War. Some of them, no doubt among the soldiers who inspired Dr. Shuckburg's verses of "Yankee Doodle," — small credit to him. Un- der the instructions of this Provincial Congress of '75, every village green in Massachusetts be- came the scene of active drill; so it is far from true that the men who first repulsed the British regulars in 1775 were simply a band of farmers, who were entirely unused to fighting. George Washington had received his early mil- itary training in the Virginia militia. He was only nineteen years of age when he was made an adjutant-general, and placed over one of the four YANKEE DOODLE i^ divisions into which the Governor had appor- tioned them. He was a tried and capable soldier, in the old French war of 1755, fighting on the side of England. In July of 1775, among the reinforcements of Washington's army at Cam- bridge, those coming from his native state in- cluded the famous Daniel Morgan; with his sturdy band of sharpshooters. It is said of these men, that each one, while marching at double- quick, was able to cleave with his rifle ball, a squirrel, at a distance of three hundred yards. Three hundred yards is nine hundred feet; double-quick means that 120 paces have to be crowded into a minute; moreover, a "pace" in "double-quick" means 36 inches, instead of the usual 30-inch stride. Add to this the fact that a squirrel is a lively proposition at any time. With such marksmen as this, it is small wonder that a great number of the British officers were picked off, like so many partridges, during the first Revo- lutionary battles. Washington's "Boys of '75," were like their sires, perhaps a motley crowd, — clad, as they were, in every known variety of country attire; but they were remarkably fine shots; that was the vital point. It has been claimed by some, that the Father of his Country was not a great soldier. In spite i6 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS of this disability, he managed to create an army- out of the roughest materials; he outgeneraled all that Britain was able to send against him ; and in the midst of poverty and distress, he organized victory. To put the case in a nutshell, "He made an empty bag stand upright," which Ben- jamin Franklin says, "is hard." For even the elements of subordination had scarcely been in- troduced; as all, to a great extent, had been so- cially equal at home ; and the distinctions of rank had yet to be established. An observer tells with astonishment, that these men appeared unacquainted with the idea of fear ; as he describes it, "With their rifles in their hands, they assumed a kind of omnipotence over their enemies." As an illustration of the character and con- dition of this army-in-the-making, a visitor to the camp repeats a conversation he overheard be- tween a captain of the militia, and one of his pri- vates. "Bill," said the captain, "go and bring a pail of water for the mess." "I sha'n't," was the reply of Bill. "It's your turn now, Captain; I got the last." Yet the same visitor, who was charged with the delivery of a letter to the Commander-in- YANKEE DOODLE 17 chief, in person, speaks with sincere emotion, of the commanding presence, the majestic mien, of General Washington. Taken all in all, it was an army animated with zeal and patriotism; even though it seemed, at first, but a throng of brave, enthusiastic, undisci- plined country lads ; with the ofificers, in general, quite as ignorant of military life, as were the troops ; with the exception of a few elderly men, who had seen active service under Lord Amherst. Notwithstanding, when the Battle of Lexington occurred, the colonies with their minute-men, and their trained bands (of militia), were as well- equipped for war as the poor dependencies of a powerful nation could reasonably expect to be. The Battle of Lexington was rather an acci- dental event. The patriots had been quietly col- lecting various stores, arms, and ammunition, and depositing them at Concord. It happened, that toward the end of the winter of 1774-1775, Gen- eral Gage had received peremptory orders to ar- rest Samuel Adams, "and his ready and willing tool," that "terrible desperado," John Hancock, and send them at once to England, to be tried for treason. A London newspaper of that period comments gaily, that "in all probability, Temple Bar will soon be decorated with some of the pa- i8 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS triotic noddles of the Boston Saints." Among other effusions, there was a little verse which read "As for their king, — that John Hancock, And Adams ; if their taken. Their heads, for signs, shall hang up high, Upon the hill called Beacon." The Provincial Congress, which met at Con- cord, had adjourned on the 15th of April. But Adams and Hancock stayed for a few days at Lexington, about eleven miles from Boston, with a mutual friend, the Rev. Mr. Jonas Clark, who lived at that place. In those early days, the Parson was the Person of the town ; the words of the preacher were esteemed as the voice of the Lord. Much of the spirit of resistance to British oppression was due to the earnestness of these clergymen, and to the moral power of their fear- less utterances. The parsonage was naturally the center of influence. In many instances, their preacher joined the ranks of the minute-men, and shouldered a musket. It was natural that the distinguished guests, John Hancock and Samuel Adams, should have turned their footsteps toward the Lexington par- sonage, fully aware of their danger, though they were. For Hancock, there was the triple at- traction of friendship, kinship and courtship. YANKEE DOODLE 19 Mrs. Clark was own cousin to the opulent young merchant; and, visiting her at the time, was the lovely Dorothy Quincy, John Hancock's bride-to- be. "Beneath Old Rooftrees" (Abram English Brown), emphasizes the fact that the celebrated midnight ride of Paul Revere was not the first one taken by that sturdy patriot in the same be- half. On the Sunday preceding, April i6th, he had ridden out to Lexington, with an important message from Dr. Warren, to the noted guests at the parsonage. Having delivered his message, he had returned in the afternoon; and before crossing the river from Charleston, he made the famous arrangement with Colonel Conant, for hanging the lanterns ; "One if by land, two if by sea." As it seemed more convenient to seize Adams and Hancock at a little post-village, than in Bos- ton, Gage, planning to kill two birds with one stone, dispatched a force of eight hundred troops, on the night of the i8th, under Lieutenant- Colonel Smith, with orders to march first to Lex- ington, — arrest the patriot leaders, — then proceed to Concord, and either capture or destroy the mili- tary supplies which we have spoken of above, as being stored there. 20 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS That night, at ten o'clock, the British troopS quietly crossed the Charles River, and began that eventful march which precipitated the Revolution- ary War. The greatest possible secrecy was ob- served. They even took the precaution to go by the difficult and unfrequented route that led through the marshes of East Cambridge. The bright moonlight night enabled every man to has- ten his movements, and stringent orders had been given, that no person whatsoever should be al- lowed to leave Boston, that night. Fortunately, the patriots of Boston were on the alert; General Warren surmised the mischief afoot; and he, just as unobtrusively, sent out Paul Revere, by way of Charleston, and William Dawes, by way of Roxbury, to give the alarm, all along the route. Later on, when Lord Percy's troops marched out of Boston, to the relief of their British com- rades at Lexington, his soldiers kept step to the merry, twinkling strains of "Yankee Doodle." And thus was played the Overture to the Great Drama of the American Revolution. For a long time, the melody was known as "The Lexington March." In view of their success, however, the Americans straightway appropriated the tune; and throughout the remainder of the war, YANKEE DOODLE 21 "Yankee Doodle" was openly accepted as their own. The Minute Men at Lexington had no uni- forms. And the only flag now in existence that waved over "the embattled farmers" on that bright spring day, was the ancient standard of the Massachusetts Militia; which is sacredly, guarded by the Bedford Free Library Corpora- tion, as an invaluable memento. In speaking afterward, of the Battle of Lex- ington, Lord Percy himself conceded that he never saw anything equal to the intrepidity of the New England Minute Men. Even more pointed, if less polished was the remark made by one of his soldiers, who declared, "They fought like bears; I'd as soon storm hell, as fight them again," In his "Travels through the Interior Parts of America," another British officer. Lieutenant An- burey, has given a frank narrative of the experi- ences through which his army passed, while mak- ing their way across the state of Massachusetts, after the defeat at Saratoga. He admits that the British soldiery at Boston had used the word "Yankee" as a term of reproach; but that after the aflfair at Bunker Hill, the Americans gloried in it. "And now," he continues, " 'Yankee Doo- 22 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS die' is their pean, a favorite of favorites, — played in their army, and esteemed as warlike as the 'Grenadier's March.' It is the lover's spell, — the nurse's lullaby." He also adds ruefully, "After our rapid successes, we held the Yankees in great contempt. So it was not a little morti- fying to hear them play this tune, of all others, when their army marched down to our surren- der." The words of the tune of "Yankee Doodle" are seldom heard of late; but as one of the stanzas well describes the music, — It suits for feasts, it suits for fun; And just as well for fighting." In the course of time, this tune served as the postlude, even as it had played the part of the musical prelude, to the struggle for Independence. When Lord Cornwallis was about to surrender, at Yorktown, in 1781, a rather peculiar matter, of the music to be used, came up for discussion. The articles of capitulation did not include a single degrading condition ; for the Americans had been unusually lenient in many of the details of the surrender. But on one little point of etiquette, they were firm, not to say inflexible. The British soldiery had always cherished, as their natural YANKEE DOODLE 23 right, the exclusive privilege of playing the tunes of the enemy, whenever they saw fit to do so. But they had no use for a rule that worked both ways; so it was customary for them to demand, at the surrender of an enemy, that the bands which belonged to the captives, should be com- pelled to play their own martial music ; — ^thus pit- ilessly rubbing salt into the wounded pride of the conquered, by the humiliating, and compulsory dragging of their melodies in the dust. Accordingly, in 1780, at the surrender of Charleston, S. C, in token of the abasement of the American forces, General Lincoln's army had expressly forbidden to play anything except an American tune. These things rankle; and now, at Yorktown, firmly persuaded that turn about was only fair play. Colonel Laurens, the American officer who conducted the negotiations, plainly directed that the sword of Cornwallis should be received by that same General Lincoln, whose army had been so unnecessarily humbled. All the other English and German officers were allowed to retain their swords. And in particular. Colonel Laurens in- sisted that the army, on marching out to lay down their arms, should play either a British or a Ger- man air. This latter was in reference to the 24 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS Hessian soldiers, so bitterly resented by the Americans. At twelve o'clock of that memorable nine- teenth of October, 1781, — over a century and a quarter ago, — the whole American and French armies were drawn up in regiments. The Americans were on the right, commanded by Gen- eral Washington, in full uniform, attended by his aides. Always a noble, stately figure, the Gen- eral was mounted on a handsome, light-colored sorrel, with a white face, and four white legs. This war horse had been a present from Governor Nelson, of Virginia; and was called "Nelson," in honor of the donor. On the left side, were the French troops, under Count Rochambeau, — and his suite. The French Generals were attended by richly dressed ser- vants, in handsome liveries, which made a grand showing. But of the American troops, it was only the regulars, in front, that looked even passable. The militia from Virginia were ragged, and poorly clothed. But they were among the vic- tors, and that was the essential point. The innate dignity and kindliness of Washing- ton are nowhere better illustrated than by a little incident often related by Dr. M'Caula, who had himself served with distinction, during the Revo- YANKEE DOODLE 25 lution. While the Continental troops were pre- paring to receive the British, who were to march forth and deliver their arms, Dr. M'Caula heard the Commander say, — addressing himself to the division of the army to which he was attached, — "My brave fellows, let no sensation of satisfac- tion for the triumphs you have gained induce you to insult your fallen enemy. Let no shouting, no clamorous huzzaing increase their mortification. It is sufficient to us that we witness their hu- miliation. Posterity will huzza for us." After long waiting, a movement was observed in the town; and finally. General O'Hara, the sec- ond in command, mounted on a splendid charger, issued from the gates. Every eye was riveted to the spot, expecting to catch a glimpse of Lord Cornwallis. But the commanding general had pleaded illness as excuse for his absence; al- though it is far more probable that his pride would not allow him to appear as a prisoner, before the eyes of those whom he had so long been accus- tomed to conquer. Slowly and gracefully, General O'Hara rode on toward Washington. As he approached the American Commander-in-chief, the British officer removed his hat, in salutation, ready to tender his sword ; when he was referred to General Lincoln, 26 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS who received the sword, but immediately handed it back to him. Slowly also, following their leader, came the British troops, marching out be- tween the two lines. They were sullen, dejected, and bitterly indignant. As the English officers passed the French officers, they saluted each one; but they took pains to show no such courtesy to the Americans in command. In such manner was the red standard of Eng- land lowered before her newest enemy, and her oldest antagonist; as the army of Lord Corn- wallis, 7,247 in number, together with 840 sea- men, marched out, with shouldered arms, and with colors furled and cased; while the band played a quaint old English melody, the signifi- cant title of which was, "The World Turned Up- side Down." To which our Continental bands responded with "Yankee Doodle." In 1812, "Yankee Doodle" again played an ef- fective part in the game of war. This time it was in the exploit of Rebecca and Abigail Bates ; who have often been called "The American Army of Two." For the story of these heroic Bates girls may be found in many of the histories of their native Bay State. YANKEE DOODLE 27 The scene of the adventure was the old Scituate Lighthouse, built on the Sandhills, Scituate, — twenty-five miles southeast of Boston. The lan- tern has been removed these many years, from the old stone tower, which has stood idle, on the end of the Sand Hills, ever since the establishment of Minot's light, with which it was apt to be con- fused by mariners. But in those early days of 181 2, the two daughters of Aaron Bates, the lighthouse-keeper, lived there with their father, on the lonely strip of beach, a good half-mile from the little village of Scituate. One day, their father was busy in his fields, which were quite a mile away from the lighthouse, when a British man-of-war came sailing in, and anchored half a mile off the shore. The boat- loads of sailors soon started for the shore ; and the invasion of Scituate would undoubtedly have taken place, there and then, had it not been for the courage and quick-^yitted cleverness of these two young girls. Hastily seizing from their ac- customed places on the wall, a fife and drum which had been carried by their grandfather, dur- ing the Revolution, and on which they had fre- quently practiced, themselves, Rebecca and Abi- gail hid behind a sandhill, and struck up "Yankee Doodle" so bravely, and to such good effect, that 28 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS the sailors changed their minds about making a landing, and returned to their ship, which soon sailed away. "Yankee Doodle" had served its purpose well. And in spite of all its shortcomings, we love it still. Even though the words are lacking in ex- alted sentiment, the brisk, rollicking, saucy gaiety of the tune, and the hallowed historic associations will always assure, for this song, its own distinc- tive place among our National Ballads. HAIL COLUMBIA HAIL. COLUMBIA Jos. HoPKiNSON, 1798. Hail, Columbia ! happy land ! Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band! Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause. Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause. And when the storm of war was gone, Enjoyed the peace your valor won. Let independence be our boast. Ever mindful what it cost; Ever grateful for the prize. Let its altar reach the skies. Firm, united, let us be. Rallying round our Liberty; As a band of brothers joined, Peace and safety we shall find. Immortal patriots ! rise once more : Defend your rights, defend your shore: Let no rude foe, with impious hand. Let no rude foe, with impious hand. Invade the shrine where sacred lies Of toil and blood the well-earned prize. While offering peace sincere and just, In Heaven we place a manly trust. That truth and justice will prevail. And every scheme of bondage fail. Sound, sound the trump of Fame! Lat Washington's great name Ring through the world with loud applause, Ring through the world with loud applause; Let every clime to Freedom dear. Listen with a joyful ear. With equal sljill, and godlike power. He governs in the fearful hour Of horrid war ; or guides, with ease. The happier times of honest peace. Behold the Chief who now commands. Once more to serve his country, stands — The rock on which the storm will beat ; The rock on which the storm will beat. But, arm'd in virtue firm and true, His hopes are fix'd on Heaven and you. When hope was sinking in dismay, And gloom obscured Columbia's day, His steady mind, from changes free. Resolved on death or liberty. HAIL COLUMBIA Though deposed now, from equal rank, "Hail Columbia," for a quarter of a century divided honors as a national song with its younger rival of 1814, "The Star-Spangled Banner," and was played on every ship of Uncle Sam's Navy, when the colors were lowered at sunset. Heretofore, in desiring to do homage to Amer- ica, or to 9- distinguished American, European bands have always played "Hail Columbia." This was the tune that saluted the first American warship that passed through Germany's great canal at Kiel. It was played as a compliment to Thomas Edison when that famous inventor en- tered the Grand Opera House in Paris, 1889. Consequently, in order to avoid the confusion arising, abroad, from our having two equally popular patriotic melodies, and particularly that foreign nations might know positively with what music to greet our warships and their officers. Admiral Dewey is said to have brought about the adoption of "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the officially recognized national anthem. 31 32 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that it has been shorn of official dignity, the melody of "Hail Columbia" continues to be a favorite, as it comes within easy range of the average singing citizen, — a vital point in its favor. This, perhaps, is why it has always been so beloved by the people that a testy critic refers to it as "the most thread- bare of all our patriotic outbursts." Perhaps he was a little dyspeptic, like Thomas Carlyle. A witty diplomatist once remarked that the real motto of the American people is "Dieu et Mon- roe." In spite of this fact, "Hail Columbia" sprang into being as a side issue of the dispute between two alien countries. During the first year of Washington's adminis- tration, the French Revolution broke out. And by the second year of that term, it had reached its most frightful period. We can hardly realize how many difficulties surrounded the first Presi- dent and his advisers, from the outset. The na- tion was deeply in debt, and its currency was a paper one. Oppressed for so many years by the burdens of an unequal war, the people were irri- tated by the necessarily heavy taxes. The In- dians on the borders of the settled States were troublesome, and the relations of the United States with the European countries were strained HAIL COLUMBIA 33 to a point that at times was alarming, by reason of the great war then going on between France and England which divided the sympathies of our people and politicians. The party which called itself "Republican," and at the head of which were Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, James Madison and Patrick Henry, were zealous friends of the French Revo- lution, and were in sympathy with the idea of extending our aid as a nation, to France. The "Federalists," chief among whom were Washing- ton, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Jay, deplored the excesses of the French Revolution- ists, and thought their example rather to be avoided than emulated, leaning more to the side of England, in the conflict which was so fiercely raging. Washington's policy was at once vigorous and moderate ; and at this distance of time, his meas- ures are recognized as being in the highest degree beneficial ; yet at that period, he was persistently caricatured and persecuted by the newspapers. It is almost unbelievable; but political spite even went to the length of drawing him in a cartoon as being executed by the guillotine. When he re- tired from his second term, one publication even went so far as to print this sentence of vilifica- 34 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS tion, "If ever a nation was debauched by a man, the American Nation has been debauched by Washington." It has been truly said that names and conditions change, but human nature is in- veterate. Between 1861 and 1865 similar venom- ous sentences were written about Abraham Lin- coln. One writer declares that we can have no idea of the abuse that was heaped upon Wash- ington, save by reading the newspapers and speeches of that period. He supported measures of finance which placed the young nation on its feet. He maintained order, and put a stop to the aggressions of the Indians. We had no re- sources. We had barely begun to gather breath from our own war; and disturbances in Europe were matters that Washington considered best for us to avoid. Therefore, Washington issued a proclamation of neutrality ; and saw that it was adhered to, in the spirit and in the letter. It was this that brought the fiercest storm down upon him. Some of the "Yellow journals" of that day even went so far as to call him a traitor. The whole expe- rience ended by damaging Washington's health. The exposures and hardships of the Revolution had made a heavy drain upon his constitution ; but it was the political strain and abuse that came HAIL COLUMBIA 35 during his Presidency, that are said to have broken his strength. And when he returned to Mt. Vernon, it was as a man weary in body and brain. The attacks upon him reached the height of their virulence during the bloodiest hours of the French Revolution, when France went to war with Eng- land because that obstinate Guelph, George III, sturdily refused to recognize France as a Repub- lic. "The tricolor shall wave on the bloodstained banks of the Thames," exclaimed one of the fire- eating French Directors, although Bonaparte al- ready knew that it could not be conveniently ar- ranged. Having aided us in Revolutionary times, the French expected us to turn about and help them, in a very diifferent sort of quarrel, against Eng- land. The Directory was then at the head of aflFairs ; and the conduct of the French government was so outrageous as to disgust many Americans who were naturally inclined to sympathize with France. Indignant at our neutrality, the French nation treated our representatives with intoler- able insolence, even threatening an invasion ; and intimating that France would have to be bought off from destroying our ships. Toward the close of Washington's presidency, the arbitrary con- duct of France to this country seemed destined to 36 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS force us into a conflict whether or no. This dan- ger continued into the period of John Adams's term. Only the firm and vigorous policy of George Washington and his successor averted the disaster ; for acts of hostility had taken place, and for about a year, there really was war, although it was never declared. By that time, our first president had gone into a well-earned retirement, from which he was called, to take command of the Americans, in case war should actually break out, with the spe- cial rank of Lieutenant-General. A few excellent frigates were built, and Wash- ington, worn and tired with public service, ac- cepted the commission (June 3rd, 1798), upon the condition that he should not be called into the field until an emergency should arise which would re- quire his actual presence. He was now a man sixty-six years of age, who had been absent from home for sixteen long years, with but short inter- vals, and his private aflfairs urgently demanded personal care. In the matter of France, the government con- tinued its anxiety to be neutral, and the people were still much divided into parties. Some felt that policy and duty required us to espouse the cause of "Republican France," while others were HAIL COLUMBIA ^y for uniting with England as the great preserva- tive power of good principles and safe govern- ment. Congress, then in session at Philadelphia, was anxiously debating what attitude was best to as- sume between the combatants. Very bitter par- tisan feelings had been aroused between the Democrats and Federalists of the United States, because of the passage of the Alien and Sedition Laws, in 1798, as an outcome of the trouble be- tween France and England. Excepting just be- fore our Civil War, party strife has never run quite so high. It was during this summer of 1798, while the violence of dissension was at its height, that the words of "Hail Columbia" were written, by Joseph Hopkinson, a Philadelphia lawyer, son of that other Philadelphia lawyer, Francis Hopkin- son, author, statesman, eminent judge, wit, musi- cian, writer of many dainty songs, clever artist with brush and pencil, who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a distin- guished patriot of Revolutionary times. He is remembered now chiefly by a satirical little poem called the "Battle of the Kegs," based upon an amusing incident of those early war times. His son, the Hon. Joseph Hopkinson, lived 38 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS from 1770 to 1842. He was born, and died, in his native Philadelphia; and this one patriotic lyric is enough to serve as his memorial for many generations to come. At the time of his birth, Philadelphia was the most centrally located of our larger cities. It was for that reason that the Continental Congress was held there. And though but five years old, at the time that the Revolution began, young Hopkinson must have witnessed many a stirring scene of the next eight years. And being one of fortune's favorites, he grew to manhood amidst the most cultured asso- ciates and refined surroundings. After his grad- uation he speedily attained distinction in the prac- tice of law. From 1828 until 1842, he was a United States District Judge. He held the office of Vice-President of the American Philosophical Society, and also was President of the Pennsyl- vania Academy of Fine Arts. Luckily, in a letter to the Reverend Rufus W. Griswold, a short time before his own death. Dr. Hopkinson tells how the words of "Hail Colum- bia" came to be penned. In speaking of the trou- blous times -spefcea-of—abo^^; he explains that "Amidst all the political turmoil the theatre was then open in our city." He goes on to say that "a young actor belonging to it, Mr. Gilbert Fox, HAIL COLUMBIA 39 called upon me one Saturday afternoon. I had known him when he was at school." The young man, it seems, was about to have a benefit per- formance on the following Monday, and he came to Hopkinson in despair, saying, "that as twenty boxes still remained unsold, it looked as though the proposed benefit would prove to be a failure." His prospects were very disheartening, but he told his former schoolmate that if he could only get a patriotic song, adapted to the then popular "President's March," he was quite sure it would win the day for him. He said that the poets of the theatrical corps had been trying in vain to accomplish this. "I told him," goes on the letter, "I would try what I could do for him. He came the next afternoon, and the song, such as it is, was ready for him. The object of the song was to get up an American spirit, which should be independent of, and above the interests, passions and policy of both of the foreign powers. And at the same time, no allusion is made either to France or Eng- land, or to the quarrel between them." It was duly advertised, that after the play, — "The Italian Monk," — an entirely new song, writ- ten by a citizen of Philadelphia, would be per- formed, to the. tune of "The President's March," 40 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS and accompanied by a full band as well as a grand chorus. The house was packed. The song found favor, of course, with both parties, as both were Ameri- can. And it was encored and re-encored, in wild enthusiasm, more than half a dozen times. Be- fore its seventh repetition, the audience, already familiar with the tune, had also learned the words of the refrain, and finally all rose and joined with Mr. Fox in the chorus, "Firm united let us be." At first it was known as "The Favorite New Federal Song." Afterward, the song took as its title the first two words of the opening stanza. It is pleasing to note that Mr. Fox, at this benefit performance, is said to have reaped a golden har- vest through the courtesy and patriotism of his poetic friend, who did not cease to be a friend because the other man was in need of help. The fourth stanza, which begins, "Behold the ; Chief," refers to the President John Adam^ To digress for a moment, it is one of the pathetic coincidences of our history as a nation, that John Adams should have died on the afternoon of the Fourth of July, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of American independence, and that on the very same day there also expired Thomas Jefferson, his friend and coadjutor in helping to lay the foundation of the great commonwealth. HAIL COLUMBIA 41 Adams and Jefferson both signed that one American state paper, which seems Hkely to last as long as civilization exists. Both were foreign ministers, both were Vice-Presidents, both were Presidents of the United States. Bancroft makes special mention of the fact that when these two men met in Europe, they were equally en- gaged in carrying on negotiations for their coun- try, and the intimacy between them was such that each of them gave his portrait to the other. When at an advanced age, they had both retired to private life, after years of rivalry and contest for the highest honor in the gift of the United States, Adams would not permit any permanent estrangement between them, and they found themselves engaged in the most intimate private correspondence. Before going out of office, John Adams had settled every difficult question ; the establishment of good feeling abroad, especially with France, constituted the crowning glory of his administra- tion, so that Jefferson, as he entered upon office, embarked upon the smoothest possible sea. The morning of the fiftieth jubilee of our Dec- laration found them both still alive, says our his- torian, and as Adams on that day, at the age of ninety-one, became aware he was dying, his last 42 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS words were : "J^flferson still lives." But Jeffer- son, the younger man by almost a decade, had passed away a few hours before him. ^The music that helped to make "Hail Colum- bia" a political success, had been written long before the words. And although there is consid- erable debate as to the composer, we know defi- nitely that the melody was composed in 1789, and it was called "The President's March," in honor of Washington, who was then living at 190 High Street, Philadelphia, which we are prone to forget was the capitol from 1790 until 1800, just as we seldom recollect that every President, except our first one, has lived in the White House/) A son of one of the claimants to the authorship of this march asserts that it was played for the first time as Washington rode over the Trenton bridge, on his way to the New York inauguration, where he took the oath of office on the site of the Sub-Treasury in Wall Street. This claimant's name was German and is variously spelled "Pfyles," "Philo," "Pfylo," "Phyla," "Phile," probably "Fyles," says one writer who is weary of wrestling with the matter. Some believe that the air was written by an- other German musician in Philadelphia, named Johannes Roth, or Roat. And the fact that there ':'■' \^'-'': ' ^i&^W^i^A ^ ^^-•■■-.^ ;, ;::;',:^p|^S R'^ ^HS^ml^^ * W.33 kJjI ' 1 P, ^^bL ■;■■ jfT- "*T'i'-^ £5 ■ ■si; ' ■Mm?'^^ . -j^;^ v~''-?Vs--^v^,.».c^< j,,j,^ ■''^■^;:,,;;., wmm^mm ..'■-■■Vi;?'". ■■-;-^,; ■,!.,.,; ; ■ :■;.•?. . ■■■■■■"■: ■■* FF?ANCIS HOPKINSON HAIL COLUMBIA 43 was a Philip Roth, teacher of music, at 25 Crown Street, mentioned in the city directory, from 1791 to 1799, lends some color to the assertion. It remained in its original state for nine years, but since it began its career as a "Federal" song it has been revised to a very considerable extent. (The tune itself might have died a natural death had it not been coupled with the present patriotic words, despite the fact that Judge Hopkinson's modesty led him to say that "the song has endured infinitely beyond the expectation of the author.") In Charles Coffin's work, "Four Years of Fighting," he speaks very earnestly of the enthu- siasm of 1 86 1. He says in part, "The patriotism of the North was at flood-tide. Everywhere the music of the streets, vocal as well as instrumental, was 'Hail Columbia,' and 'Yankee Doodle.' " Even before that, December, i860, when Major Anderson as he then was, had taken possession of the still unfinished Fort Sumter, and at noon pre- cisely, on the second day after Christmas, raised the American flag brought away from Fort Moul- trie. As he drew the Star-Spangled Banner of the United States up to the top of the staff, and the band broke out with the national air of "Hail Columbia," loud and exultant cheers, repeated again and again, were given by the officers, sol- diers, and workmen. 44 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS "If," says the narrator, "South Carolina had, at that moment, attacked the fort, there would have been no hesitation on the part of any man within it, about defending the flag." Major An- derson himself was of southern birth, and a vet- eran of thirty-five years' service in the United States army. His firm stand for the Union and his sagacious operations in Charleston harbor, together with his sturdy defence of Sumter, give him a just claim to remembrance, among the pre- servers of the Union. He defended Fort Sumter for thirty- four hours of attack, until the quarters were entirely burned, the main gates destroyed by fire, the gorge walls seriously injured, the magazine surrounded by flames, and its door closed from the eflPects of the heat, and no pro- visions remaining but pork. Notwithstanding all this, in accepting terms of evacuation offered by General Beauregard, "I marched out of the fort, Sunday afternoon, the 14th instant," he writes in his report, "with colors flying, and drums beat- ing, bringing away company and private prop- erty, and saluting my flag with fifty guns." It is further related, as an incident of Mill Spring, January 19th, 1862, that after the bat- tle, when the Minnesota regiment returned to its quarters at Camp Hamilton, they marched past HAIL COLUMBIA 45 the colonel's marquee with banners flying, and their splendid band playing "Hail Columbia." Standing in front of the tent were Dr. Cliff, General Zollicoffer's brigade surgeon, Lieutenant Colonel Carter of the Twentieth Tennessee regi- ment, and several Union officers. "Hail Colum- bia" affected both the rebel officers to tears ; they wept like children. And Colonel Carter confessed that though compelled to fight against the old flag, he dearly loved it still. STAR-SPANGLED BANNER THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER Francis Scott Key, 1814. Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming. Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the * clouds of the fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep. Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes. What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam. In full glory reflected now shines on the stream: 'Tis the star-spangled banner: oh, long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! And where is that band who so vauntingly swore Mid the havoc of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more? Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave : And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. Oh, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and wild war's desolation; Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land Praise the pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just. And this be our motto : "In God is our trust !" And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. * "Clouds of the fight," according to the last version by F. S. Key. STAR-SPANGLED BANNER By common consent, the American people have made the Star-Spangled Banner their National Anthem; for it is the national melody which is dearest to the American heart. What matters it, though the critics contend that the words are not majestic, that the music is not easy, that the high note is out of reach? With convincing emphasis, a current writer re- sponds, "As it reverberates around the world, played by the superb bands of our allies, the mil- lions of people who hear it will admire and respect the music; because they will know that it repre- sents the best traditions and the mighty resources of a nation of 110,000,000 free people." That ennobles it. Perhaps a few words relative to the emblem which it celebrates, may not be amiss, for as Henry Ward Beecher said, "Our flag carries American ideas, American history, and American feelings." During the very early colonial times, there were many different kinds of flags, which represented 49 50 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS the various nations which had settlements dotted here and there in the wilderness. We had no dis- tinctive flag of our own, until the Revolutionary days. During the Provincial period, the English flag of that date was in use from Maine to Geor- gia, with various devices, mottoes, and colors, which would look strange enough to us now. For some of the flags were all red, with horizontal stripes, or red and blue stripes only, while others were red, blue, white or yellow. All told we were thirteen feeble little states, fringed at intervals along the great Atlantic sea coast, with the scattered settlements separated from each other by long, lonely distances; and back of these lay only the savage, unbroken for- est. The first really American flag had its origin in a resolution adopted by the American Congress on June 14th, 1777. They "Resolved that the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white ; that the union (or canton), be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." Fortunately, we have an explanation of the colors and sym- bolic meaning of the "Stars and Stripes" which was written by a member of the old Continental Congress, to whom along with others was com- FRANCIS SCOTT KEY STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 51 mitted the duty of selecting a flag for the infant confederacy. He says, "The stars of the new flag represent the constellation of States rising in the West. The idea was taken from the con- stellation Lyra; which, in the hand of Orpheus, signifies harmony. The stars were in a circle, symbolizing the perpetuity of the Union ; the ring like the circling serpent of the Egyptians, sig- nifying eternity. The thirteen stripes showed, together with the stars, the number of the United Colonies, and denoted the subordination of the States to the Union, as well as equality among themselves. The red color, which in the Roman day was the signal of defiance, denotes courage, the blue fidelity, and the white, purity." "It is the flag of history," says another. "Those thirteen stripes tell the story of our co- lonial struggle, — of the days of '76. They speak of the pathless wilderness, — of old Independence Hall, of Valley Forge and Yorktown. Those stars tell the story of our nation's growth; how it has come from weakness to strength; until its gleam, in the sunrise over the forests of Maine, crimsons the sunset's dying beams upon the golden sands of California." When we rebelled, — for it was nothing less than that to England, and our George Washing- 52 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS ton was merely a leading rebel, — we had neither place nor name among the great family of na- tions. Neither had we any flag of our own. Our army at Cambridge celebrated New Year's Day, January ist, 1776, by unfurling, for the first time in an American camp, the flag of thirteen stripes. This famous first colonial flag, said to have been hoisted by George Washington, was the "Great Union," and consisted of the thirteen alternate red and white stripes, like the present flag of the United States, but with the red cross of St. George, and the white cross of St. Andrew emblazoned on the blue corner, or canton, in the place which the stars now occupy. Not until the 14th of June, of the next year, did Congress, which met then in Philadelphia, settle definitely upon the design we know as "The Stars and Stripes." At Oriskany Falls, New York, five British standards were captured; and upon returning to Fort Stanwix, they were hoisted, and above them was placed an uncouth flag which was intended, in good faith, to represent the new American stars and stripes. This rude banner, which had been hastily extemporized out of a white shirt, an old blue coat, and some strips of red flannel, was the first American flag made after the new style, STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 53 that was ever raised in victory. And it was flung to the breeze on that memorable day of Oriskany, August 6th, 1777. The thirteen stars and thirteen stripes helped to cheer the hungry and half-clad patriot sol- diers at Valley Forge, in that bitter winter of 1777, when Washington once called the com- manding officer of a detachment that had just paraded before him, and sternly asked, "How comes it, sir, that I have tracked the march of your troops by the bloodstains of their feet upon the frozen ground?" "Poor fellows!" he ex- claimed with a voice tremulous, but kindly, when it was explained to him that the supply of shoes was entirely exhausted. For the General, us- ually so impassive, was observed to be deeply af- fected by the officer's description of his soldier's privations and sufferings. In the War of 181 2, the sea breezes blew over no American ship that did not have the flag of stars and stripes at its fore ; its folds seemed to be filled with voices that called aloud the names of the gallant seamen, — Lawrence, Perry, Hull, De- catur, and many others whose names will never perish. It had been decreed that on the admission of a new State, a new Star should be added to the 54 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS constellation. These stars have five points, where those on our coins have six. The stars were at first arranged on our flags in circles, then in the form of a large star. Now they run in parallel lines. When, almost a century ago, Lieutenant Colo- nel George Armistead, in disobedience to his or- ders, beat off the British from Baltimore, the gov- ernment did not court-martial him, but instead, raised him, by brevet, one grade, and presented to him outright, the flag he had saved, — The Star- Spangled Banner which flew over Fort McHenry during its bombardment, and inspired Francis Scott Key to write our national ode. The design is somewhat different from those we are accustomed to see. And it was made by the daughter of that Rebecca Young, who made the first flag of the Revolution, under the direction of Washington himself. Being about forty feet by twenty-nine, it was too large for any ordinary house; so Mrs. Pickersgill sewed upon it in Clagitt's brewery, in Baltimore, work- ing patiently many a night up until midnight. A photograph of it, taken over a quarter of a century ago, shows a big hole near the center, which was made by a bombshell, during the bom- bardment, and a large section is missing from one STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 55 corner. This is because, many years ago, when one of the defenders of the fort died, he begged, as a last request, that his body should be wrapped in a piece of the flag ; and his dying wish was re- spected. It was probably used in the funeral procession of Colonel Armistead in 1818; for the gallant officer lived but a short time, to enjoy the possession of it. This cherished Star-Spangled Banner floated over Washington's own tent, which sheltered Lafayette, on his visit to Fort McHenry, in 1824, a dozen years after the War of 1812 ; and twenty- five years after the death of his old friend, George Washington. What memories these two historic relics must have wakened in the breast of the il- lustrious Frenchman ! His own grave is situated in old Paris, within the grounds of a convent that the ancestors of Lafayette founded, and where repose the remains of many of the French no- bility. An American who made a pilgrimage to the tomb of this friend of liberty, relates this: "The first thing that attracted my attention in connection with the hero's resting-place, was, that above it floated a silken flag, bearing the Stars and Stripes." During the Civil War, the priceless flag of Fort McHenry is said to have been sent to England, 56 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS for safe keeping. It was exhibited during the Centennial, at Philadelphia. But it is not strong enough to fling out to the breeze, these days. By- reason of age and general debility, it was found necessary, some years ago, to stitch it upon a firm canvas back. However, while its days of active service are over, it will always be fondly treas- ured as long as there yet remains to us the least bit of "Its red for love, and its white for law; And its blue for the hope, that our fathers saw, Of a larger liberty." To the friendship of one young man for an- other, we are indebted, in all probability, for the song, which above every other seems to be an essential part of the American nation. --Dr. Beanes, a leading physician of Upper Marl- borough, Maryland, had been taken captive by the British. He was then held prisoner by the admiral, presumably to be finally carried off. It was during the summer of 1814, when the war which was then raging between the United States and Great Britain seemed to have turned in favor of the latter nation. Nothing daunted, Francis Scott Key, a young lawyer of Baltimore, who was a personal friend STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 57 of Dr. Beanes, determined to seek the British admiral, in order to obtain his release, if possible. A small vessel in Baltimore which was used as a flag-of -truce boat for the exchange of prisoners, was placed at Mr. Key's disposal. It was in charge of John S. Skinner, the commissioner. Having secured the proper credentials from Pres- ident Madison, and proofs that Dr. Beanes was a non-combatant, Mr. Key, in the hope of gaining his liberation, set out on what was at that time, a dangerous mission. For nearly three years the tide of combat had alternated. Our country was young, and poor, and sparsely settled; and we were fighting the finest army and navy on earth. The shores of Chesapeake Bay were ravaged by the British fleet, under Admiral Cockburn; even Baltimore itself was threatened with speedy capture. The British had landed on our southern coast; and making havoc of villages and plantations as they went, they took the city of Washington, and burned the Capitol, and the President's house, from which Mr. Madison and his family had for- tunately escaped, into Virginia) The beautiful Dolly Madison had managed to save the Cabinet papers by "pressing them into trunks, as to fill one carriage." She also man- 58 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS aged to save the treasured Gilbert Stuart oil painting of George Washington. The portrait hung so high that a step-ladder was required to reach it. And as it was screwed fast to the wall, and the process of unscrewing it was found to be too tedious for those perilous moments, she or- dered the frame broken, and the canvas taken out. Their private property had to be sacrificed. On that very morning, General Armstrong had assured Mrs. Madison there was no danger. That afternoon about three, the household was compelled to flee, to avoid capture; for the British were expected at any minute. Only a few hours after the President and his wife had left the Capitol, Ross and Cockburn, the British com- manders, entered the city at the head of their troops, and at once proceeded to set fire to the Capitol. Then, by the lurid light of the flames, they marched two miles to the White House, where, after the rooms were ransacked, the furni- ture was piled together in the drawing-room, and fired by coals secured from a neighboring tavern. It is said that the fires lighted up the midnight sky till the red glare could be seen for many miles. But a fearful tornado followed their conflagra- tion, and the British were awe-struck, as well as uneasy at vague rumors of renewed attacks by THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER WHICH INSPIRED THE SONG STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 59 the Americans ; so they withdrew from Washing- ton. When, after forty-eight hours of fright and discomfort, Mrs. Madison again entered the city, it was to find the house that she had left, a mass of smoking ruins. Seme"weeks-4at-e*', just at a most critical time, the American envoy, Mr, Key, innocently made his way, under a flag of truce, to the Admiral's ship, in Chesapeake Bay; and he could hardly have arrived at a more inopportune moment. Admiral Cockburn had transferred Dr. Beanes to the custody of Vice- Admiral Cochrane, and to him Mr. Key now went. However, Admiral Cockburn had planned a concerted attack, both by land and sea, upon Fort McHenry, by which Bal- timore was defended. While the Vice-Admiral agreed to release the doctor, and treated Mr. Key with courtesy, he refused to allow them to go back, until the fort had been reduced, as he knew that the Ameri- cans must have seen the preparations that were going on in the fleet, and would no doubt disclose the intended attack, were they permitted to re- turn. He is said to have detained the party on board his son's ship. The Surprise, and still later placed them, under guard, on their own little cartel, or 6o OUR NATIONAL BALLADS flag-of-truce boat, during the night of the at- tack. As Mr. Key was, at the time, a volunteer in the light artillery, it is not difficult to imagine his bit- ter disappointment at being compelled to remain with the enemy during the important battle which ensued. Key is said to have had a deeply per- sonal concern in the result, inasmuch as the fort was defended by only a small force of regulars, which were supplemented by volunteer artillerists, under the command of Judge Nicholson, a broth- er-in-law of Mr. Key. All day long he watched the flag at the fort, until the gathering darkness prevented his seeing it any more; for the bombardment which began on the thirteenth of September, 1814, was con- tinued throughout the night following. Less than a month had elapsed, since he had seen from his own home, the light of the burning buildings in Washington; and well he -knew the fate that was in store for Baltimore, should the attack suc- ceed. ) Admiral Cockburn counted on the taking of Fort McHenry being an easy task; little dream- ing that the attack would become famous in American history, for an entirely different rea- son. But to the little party of prisoners on their STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 6i flag-of -truce boat, the situation was most depress- ing. The bombardment lasted from Tuesday morn- ing, until after midnight ; and the American gun- ners were unable to reply, because the forty-two pounders, with which they were equipped, could not reach the fleet. Attacked as it was, both from land and water, incapable of returning the fire of the British vessels, the little fort of brick and earth, crouching on its projecting point of land, seemed doomed to destruction; and with it, the city itself. Yet at sunset, the flag was still waving from the ramparts. Some accounts state that Key had been told to look well at the flag that evening, as he would not see it there, in the morn- ing. ■ By this time, the American party on the cartel- ship, had been augmented by the addition of Dr. Beanes ; for the Vice- Admiral Cochrane had been as good as his word, and had given the physician into their charge. During the suspense of that terrible night, sleep was out of the question. Held as prisoners, on their own little boat, ex- posed to the fire from the shore, as the darkness deepened, though they watched eagerly, they could see the flag on its staff only by the fitful glare of the battle, as the bomb-shells exploded. 62 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS After midnight, there came a cessation of fir- ing. But it was renewed, an hour later, and at closer quarters. Then, toward dawn, it ceased. Those were the most trying moments of all, for so long as the firing continued, it was evident that the fort was holding out; and the shore was still shrouded from the straining eyes of the three Americans, oy the vapors. The early morning hours found them still pac- ing the deck, impatiently waiting for the dawn, that they might see the result. Looking through Mr. Key's field glasses, it was with the greatest anxiety that the Americans again examined the fort, in the dim gray of that eventful morning. At last they were rewarded for their long vigil. A rift in the mist disclosed the Stars and Stripes yet floating over the American defences. The attack had failed, in spite of the Admiral's boast that he would carry the fort in a few hours, and then the city must fall; a boast most feelingly al- luded to, in the third stanza of the song. Mr. Key did not know that soon after midnight. Admiral Cockburn had received word that the land attack on the fort had been repulsed, the com- mander, Ross, having been killed ; and unless the fort could be destroyed by the fleet, the expedi- tion would fail. This explained the fierce bom- STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 63 bardment at close quarters, which had begun at one o'clock in the morning. Sixteen British frigates, with a full complement of bomb-ketches and barges had taken part. Yet, strange to say, only four men of the garrison were killed, and but twenty-four wounded, although between fif- teen and eighteen hundred shells had been thrown, about four hundred of which fell within the forti- fications. All that Key knew at the time, was that "the flag was still there." Later on the Americans were notified that as the attack was unsuccessful and the soldiers were re-embarking, the American party were free to depart, as soon as the troops had come on board. Beginning with that thrilling moment of the gray dawn, when he was first able to espy his flag, Mr. Key had begun to jot down, on the back of a letter, which he happened to have in his pocket, the opening stanza of the poem soon to become so celebrated. Finishing it, as the boat was go- ing up to Baltimore, he wrote out a copy of the verses, at the hotel, the same day. From this, other copies were at once struck off, in handbill form, under the title, "The Bombardment of Fort McHenry," with the added instruction that the old air, "To Anacreon in Heaven," had been adapted to it, by the author. ,64 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS That night, in the tavern adjoining the HoUi- day Street Theatre, in Baltimore, Ferdinand Du- rang mounted a chair, and sang the "Star-Span- gled Banner," for the first time. The effect was an outburst of patriotic enthusiasm. A week later it was printed in the newspaper, Baltimore American, which also stated that it was to be sung to the melody, "Anacreon in Heaven," a tune or- iginally used with an old English drinking song, — I grieve to say, — a rollicking song of a date be- tween 1770 and 1775. The melody has been credited, in turn, to Dr. Samuel Arnold (1739-1803), composer to His Majesty's Chapel, and also as transcribed from an "old French air" by John Stafford Smith^ As for Anacreon, — he was one of the most famous lyric poets of Greece; and flourished about five hundred years before Christ ; so that we must assume that the Heaven of Anacreon was dis- tinctly the Heaven of the Greeks. His poems were inspired by love and wine. However, he probably sentimentalized considerably, in both di- rections, as his poems are models of delicate grace, simplicity and ease; all of which entail a liberal dose of Mr. Edison's formula for genius. In any case, while Anacreon had his ups and downs, like the rest of us, he managed to pass a gay and STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 65 happy old age, when, according to tradition, he was choked to death by a grape-seed, in his eighty- fifth year; so that it would appear at last, that the punishment fitted the crime. The name of our melody is taken from the words attributed to Ralph Tomlinson, who was president of the Anacreontic Society of London, in the last half of the eighteenth century. It was a Bohemian, rather than a bacchanalian club, holding its meetings at the "Crown and Anchor," in the Strand. And by a singular coincidence, the birth of freedom in America, and the melody which was destined to become the chief song of freedom, happened to occur about the same period of time; although the original air differs a little from the present setting. In England, other sets of words were adapted to the air, for the tune became very popular. Even as early as the eighteenth century, it was known to nearly every one in the United States; but the music was travelling now in better com- pany, insofar as the words were concerned, for the verses set to it began to take on a patriotic cast of countenance. The first of such settings being made in 1798, by Robert Treat Paine, son of that Robert Treat Paine who signed the Dec- laration of Independence. Numerous different verses followed. 66 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS From its popularity, Mr, Key was probably very familiar with the old melody to which he had wedded his inspired verses, and the song car- ried everything before it. The very fact that the British Admiral had boasted that he would carry Fort McHenry in a few short hours, added piquancy to the reality of his defeat. The words have continued to inspire patriot zeal in the people for whom they were written. During the Civil War times, the faithfulness of many of the citizens of North Carolina to the Na- tional Government was shown in a picturesque incident at the surrender of Fort Macon, which commanded the entrance to the harbor of Beau- fort, and was taken by the Unionists on April 25th, 1862. When the Southern flag was struck, and the national standard took its place, an old man with a long white beard, leaped upon the ruined ram- part, with a silver bugle in his hand, and joy- ously blew the notes of "The Star-Spangled Ban- ner." Francis Scott Key was the son of John Ross Key, an officer of the Revolutionary army. Our distinguished Marylander was born in Frederick county, August ist, 1779, and died in Washing- ton, D. C, January nth, 1843, leaving the "Star- KEY'S GRAVE AT FREDERICK, MARYLAND, OVER WHICH THE FLAG FLOATS STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 67 Spangled Banner" as a lasting monument to his patriotic spirit. This lives also in his descend- ants, for a great-grandson was cited for a dec- oration by King Albert of the Belgians as a re- ward for valor during the great world war. / njrhe love of the people for their "Star-Spangled Banner" has never abated, in the century that has come and gone. Today, it stands as our rep- resentative national melody, both at home and abroad. And still it thrills the true American, be he citizen, soldier, or sailor, with the same de- votion to the old flag that Francis Key breathed into those vivid lines, jotted down red-hot from his heart, on that long ago September morning, although three quarters of a century have passed, since he was gathered to his fathers?^ Now it ap- pears that the ancient fortress is also destined to rest in peace. During midsummer of 191 2, this little para- graph was found in a metropolitan journal, dated Baltimore, July 20th, It reads, "The bugle re- veille call which has echoed across the Patapsco River, and through historic Fort McHenry, for the past 137 years, was sounded this morning for the last time ; marking the abandonment of the old garrison as a military post. The soldiers sta- tioned there were sent to Fort Strong, Mass. 68 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS "The old fort, over which floated the flag which inspired Francis Scott Key to write 'The Star- Spangled Banner/ has long been regarded by the War Department as useless, for a means of de- fence. It will hereafter be in charge of a civilian caretaker." In commemoration of the one hundredth anni- versary of the writing of the song, a buoy has been anchored in Baltimore harbor, as nearly as possible to the spot where Mr. Key wrote his famous song; a buoy on which is painted red and white stripes, and white stars on a blue field. AMERICA AMERICA My country! 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing: Land where my fathers died! Land of the pilgrims' pride! From ev'ry mountain side let freedom ring! My native country, thee, land of the noble, free, thy name I love ; I love thy rocks and rills, thy woods and templed hills : my heart with rapture thrills like that above. Let music swell the breeze, and ring from all the trees sweet freedom's song: Let mortal tongues awake ; let all that breathe partake ; let rocks their silence break, the song prolong. Our fathers' God! to Thee, Author of liberty, to Thee we sing: Long may our land be bright with freedom's holy light; protect us by Thy might, great God, our King ! NEW VERSE God save our splendid men, bring them safe home again, God save our men. Make them victorious, patient and chivalrous; they are so dear to us — God save our men. AMERICA' Our witty "Autocrat," Oliver Wendell Holmes, once playfully declared that Mr. Smith and Mrs. Brown were the two most popular poets in the United States. He had in mind the Reverend Samuel F. Smith, to whom we are indebted for our beautiful na- tional anthem, — "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and Mrs. Phcebe Hinsdale Brown, who wrote the famous hymn which begins, "I love to steal awhile away from every slumbering care." "America" has been the solace of countless pa- triotic souls for almost ninety years. In October of 1908, the good folk of Newton, Massachusetts, celebrated the hundredth anni- versary of Mr. Smith's birth, as he had lived there among them for many happy years before he passed away. The song dates back to 1832, and while the "America" of which the author wrote, existed up until perhaps to fifty years ago, the "Amer- ica" of to-day is infinitely changed. This is to 71 72 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS be expected, with a population that has come to represent universal humanity more nearly than any other country ever has, since the Tower of Babel. As late as the fifties, there were only three street car lines in New York, and these ran only once an hour after midnight. No "busses" ever ran after that hour, and as a majority of the edi- tors, reporters, and compositors lived either from two to three and four miles up town, or in Brooklyn and Williamsburg, they walked home between midnight and two in the morning. The United States of Mr. Smith's birth year would be still more of a curiosity to us. At that time, the Mississippi Valley was not so well known as the heart of Africa is now; and there was not a free public library in the entire length and breadth of the land. Stoves were unknown, and crockery plates were seriously objected to, because they dulled the knives. All cooking was done before an open fireplace, and a New England girl was not allowed to marry, until she could bake a loaf of bread, and cut it in smooth, even slices while it was still warm; not a bad appren- ticeship to the art of the housekeeper, and worthy of revival in these days of consecutive divorce. When the future author of our national hymn AMERICA 73 first opened his eyes, it was upon a very differ- ent America in regard to customs and manners, arts and sciences, commerce and navigation, in that year of 1808. Samuel F^ncis Smith was born in Boston, October 21^*''"' "Did I ever tell you," he once wrote to a friend, "that I was wee and weakly in my early days? But the begin- ning of the study of Latin was the signal of my improvement, — a queer specific for feeble child- hood, not set down in the medical books. I never found a Latin lesson a task." This may tax the belief of the lad who is wrestling with his first conjugation. But it is certain that this particu- lar little Smith studied at the Boston Latin School, graduated at Harvard College in 1829, at the age of 21 years ; and at 24, graduated from the Andover Theological Seminary in 1832. After a year spent in editorial labors in Bos- ton, at twenty-six, he was ordained pastor of the First Baptist Church in Waterville, Maine. At the same time, he began as professor of modern languages, in Waterville College, now known as Colby College, which conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity upon him. For eight years he performed the duties of these two positions. As he states, himself, "I have always been inter- ested in the acquisition of languages, and had 74 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS facility in learning thenj. I have read books in fifteen different languages, and since my eighty- fifth birthday have undertaken the Russian," He removed to Newton, Massachusetts, in 1842, and became pastor of the First Baptist Church. For twelve years and a half he held that office. For seven years of that time, he was also editor of the Christian Review, a quarterly, published in Boston. Then he became editorial secretary of the American Baptist Missionary Union, for fifteen years. He visited Europe in 1875, and travelled for a year. In 1 880-1 882 he again visited Europe, and also Asia. For a lit- tle over two years, he inspected missions of all denominations, both in Asia and in Europe. After his return, occasional preaching, literary pursuits and correspondence kept this busy, use- ful man fully occupied. In 1895, the Rev. Samuel M. May, his old friend and Harvard classmate, had written to Dr. Smith, congratulating him upon having the best health, and the greatest ability to work, of any of the four surviving members of their class of 1829, in Harvard, and Dr. Smith had made the cheery reply, "Yes, I am, perhaps, the best in health, of the four remnants. I am grateful." "What is Fame?" once queried Oliver Wen- SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH AMERICA 75 dell Holmes. Then in answer to his own ques- tion, the genial doctor replied, "It is to write a hymn which sixty millions of people sing, — that is fame." In referring again, to his old friend and classmate, he exclaimed, "Now, there's Smith, his name will be honored by every school child in the land, when I have been forgotten for a hundred years. He wrote 'My Country 'Tis of Thee.' If he had said 'Our Country' the hymn would not have been immortal, but that 'My' was a master stroke. Every one who sings the song, at once feels a personal ownership in his native land. The Hymn will last as long as the coun- try." Dr. Holmes had also been one of that famous Harvard class of 1829, and it was at an assem- blage of the graduates, many years afterward, that he so neatly summed up the clergyman's ti- tle to renown, in one of the ingenious stanzas of his celebrated class reunion poem, entitled, "The Boys." "And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith, — Fate thought to conceal him by naming him Smith ; But he chanted a song for the brave and the free, — Just read on his medal, 'My Country' 'of Thee' !" From childhood. Dr. Smith had composed poetry, and the story of the origin of this hymn 76 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS is from his own pen, long years since the time that he was a youth of twenty-four, at Andover. Lowell Mason, who was then a noted composer, organist and choir master, was much interested in some books which had been loaned to him by a friend, William C. Woodbridge, of New York, a famous educator, who had just returned home from Germany, where his mission had been to inspect the public school system, with a view to adopting any features of interest unknown to our schools here. He found that much atten- tion was given to music, in these schools, and he brought back several of their music books, which contained songs and music especially adapted for children. He placed them in the hands of Lowell Mason. But having no knowledge of the German Langfuage (its difficulties demand capi- talization), Mr. Mason, in turn, took them to a young theological student at Andover, by the name of Smith, asking plain Mr. Smith, as he was then known, to either translate the German works, or to write new hymns and songs adapted to the German music. So it came about, that on a dismal day of Feb- ruary, 1832, the young student happened to be glancing over these same German music books. Suddenly his attention became riveted upon one / AMERICA ^^ tune in particular, attracted alike by its simple and natural movement, and by its special fitness for childish voices, and children's choirs. Looking at the German words at the foot of the page, he saw that they were patriotic. "And I was instantly inspired," he tells us, "to write a patriotic hymn of my own." "Seizing a scrap of waste paper, I began to write, and in half an hour, I think, the words stood upon it, substantially as they are sung today. I did not know, at the time, that the tune was the British 'God Save the King,' and I do not share the re- gret of those who deem it unfortunate that the national tune of Britain and America should be the same." "I did not purpose to write a national hymn, I laid the song aside, and nearly forgot I had made it. Some weeks later, I sent it to Mr. Mason, and on the following Fourth of July, he brought it out, much to my surprise, at a chil- dren's celebration in the Park Street Church, Boston." July Fourth, then, of 1832, is to be remembered as the first time when this hymn was ever sung in public. Accustomed as we are, to the many portraits of him as a venerable man, it seems almost dis- respectful to mention the Reverend Dr. Edward Everett Hale as being one of the children who 78 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS sang on that memorable occasion. He was ten years old at the time. Dr. Smith relates that he began very soon to hear of the hymn as being sung in numerous schools, at patriotic gatherings, at picnics, and so on, from Maine to Texas. It found a place in the hymn books of the various denominations. It came back to him with variations in Latin and in Italian, in German and in Swedish. He par- ticularly mentions that the scenes connected with the Civil War called it into universal requisition. The children who had learned it at school had become stalwart men by that time, and it nerved them, in the hour of their country's peril. It was sung at meetings held to encourage volunteering into the army, to celebrate victories, to fast and pray after defeats, at soldiers' funerals; it was sung when the women met to pick lint, and pre- pare bandages for the wounded, or to forward supplies to the front. General Howard, whose own empty sleeve spoke volumes, once told the author of the hymn how he had heard it on the battlefields, and in hospitals, by day and by night. How the poor mutilated soldiers, as soon as their wounds were dressed, had many times lifted up their voices in harmony, singing yet another pean for their AMERICA 79 countr)^; for which they were proud to suffer, and die. Dr. Smith lived to hear his poem sung wher- ever there were American hearts to pulsate; and was so deeply honored that it is doubtful if he had any enemy, an opponent, or a critic. Herbert D. Ward writes in April, 1895, "Dear old Dr. Smith and I happen to live in the same town, — Newton Centre, Mass., — and I can speak of him with the freedom of a neighbor, and the reserve of an acquaintance. He is only eighty- six years old, and yet he gives the impression of being about seventy. With the exception of his deafness, he is as hearty as he was forty years ago. The simplicity of his life is one secret of its strength and beauty. For more than half a century he has lived in a modest, gabled brown house opposite the Common." There seems to be a sort of poetic justice in the fact that, on every school day, the Stars and Stripes wave to the breeze from the tall pole in front of his house, and that the words of his own immortal song easily and often find their way, in children's voices, across the Common, the street and the little front yard, to the very heart of their birth. "I wrote the hymn to suit the metre," Dr. Smith 8o OUR NATIONAL BALLADS had said, in explaining how he happened, quite unconsciously, to annex that part of the British possessions represented by the melody of their national anthem, "God Save the King." Yet perhaps he only followed in their own footsteps, for the history of this air might well be called, "The Story of a Tune on Its Travels." It has created endless discussion, has masqueraded in more shapes, and has been put to the most diverse uses, by more civilized nations, than perhaps ever happened to any one other single melody. The French author, Jules Combarieu, claims that national hymns originated with the peoples of |:he north, and are of comparatively recent date. They did not exist during the Middle Ages, but appeared with the formation of modern states. He explains that they are not, properly speak- ing, works of art, but the fruit of politics and patriotism — the outcome of circumstances. In Geneva, Kling maintains that the English Royal Hymn was taken from the national Swiss hymn, written to celebrate the victory of the an- cient republic of Geneva over the troops of the Duke of Savoy, as far back as 1602, and that it was sung for the first time in 1603, at the anni- versary festival. Some years later, the melody appeared in Eng- AMERICA 8i land, where it was sung in honor of James I, after an arrangement by the celebrated harpsi- chordist, Dr. John Bull, who lived from 1523 to 1628. There was such an air, dated 161 9. But while it resembles the modern tune, it is in a minor key, and is what linguists would term, "a free translation." A German writer, E. Handtmann, undertakes to prove that the melody of the English hymn was taken from an old song of pilgrims, in Silesia, which they themselves probably took from an ob- solete liturgical chant. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was worked over by the composer LuUy, into a French patriotic song for the express glorification of Le Grand Monarque, Louis XIV. His was the longest reign that ever king had, — seventy- seven years, — and he was sick and weary of it, long before it ended, in spite of his untamable pride. This French claim to the music is sup- ported by three nuns of the convent of St. Cyr, Chartres, who testified to the existence of the tune at that convent during the last century. Later on, the motive was taken by Handel for a song to the Elector of Hanover, who became King George I of England, on the very sudden and unexpected death of Queen Anne, with whom 82 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS Handel had also been a great favorite, as indeed he was with all English music lovers. This air was tossed back and forth, from coun- try to country, much like a musical shuttle-cock, until it came at last to a definite rest among Eng- lish-speaking people; where it then appeared as a prayer for the glory and happiness of the sov- ereign. And while authorities disagree, as us- ual, there seems scarcely a reasonable doubt that the great English national anthem was written, as it now stands, in its entirety, by Henry Carey, the composer of that famous ditty, "Sally in Our Alley." Mr. Carey had the unusual experience of having lived in six reigns, that is, from the reign of Charles H to George IL This very un- fortunate genius finally committed suicide, after a life of nearly eighty years. The song which has done so much to render loyalty to the throne a sort of inherited instinct with the English people, was first heard at a tavern in Cornhill, in 1740, at a dinner party given in celebration of the capture of Porto Bello, by Admiral Vernon, on November 20th, 1739, — England being busily at war with Spain at the time. It was called, "God Save Great George, Our King," the singer being Henry Carey, who, after being heartily applauded, announced that AMERICA 83 both words and music were of his own produc- tion. During the first half of the eighteenth cen- tury, Carey was so popular a composer and dram- atist that his plays drew crowded audiences to the theatres. Beside these, he wrote numerous songs and cantatas. It is declared that "God Save the King" has been worth more to the sovereigns of Great Brit- ain than all the diamonds of the royal regalia, not even excepting the great Kohinoor, for it has strengthened the bonds of fidelity to the crown, over and over again, in times of danger, and has added fervor to the patriotism of more peaceful days. In 1760, a Bavarian lutist arranged the air for his instrument, a work found in the Germanic Museum of Nuremberg; in 1766 we find it in a song book of the Holland Free Masons, published in the Hague. ^ In 1790 it entered Denmark, Heinrich Harries (i 762-1 802) published it with the following title : "A song to be sung by the Danish subjects at the Fete of their King, to the melody of the English Hymn." In Bavaria, in Saxony, in Wiirtemburg, in a word in all the Anglo-Saxon countries, the melody spread, more or less altered. 84 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," was not the only arrangement of the fine old melody, on this side of the water. Several other sets of patriotic verses had previously been adapted to it. Even while fighting the mother country with might and main, America was not in the least averse to using the English national anthem as her own, feeling keenly the truth of the saying that "Happy is the nation which has a good song, and a good tune on the side of law and order." In relating the exploits of the "Rough Riders," both Colonel Roosevelt and Edward Marshall mention a very touching incident in connection with "America," that occurred at the improvised open-air hospital, after the fight at Las Guasimas. Imagine a hospital without even a tent to cover it. The wounded men lay sheltered beneath the spreading branches of a mango tree, there in the wilderness. Most of them had only the canvas halves of shelter tents to protect them from the wet grass ; only a few had blankets to lie upon. Some dreadful operations had to be performed in that little hospital in the woods ; and as human nature has limits, it is small wonder that some few of the men who had stood their suffering with calm patience, and without any complaint, were by this time, so strained and nerve racked, that it was impossible for them to control themselves any AMERICA 85 longer; and the poor fellows groaned uncannily. Most of them were badly wounded; some were looking forward to amputation of their arms and legs, with what fortitude they were able to com- mand; and some were staring death in the face. Edward Marshall, — though a war correspond- ent, not a soldier, — was nevertheless so terribly injured, that when first succored, on the battle- field, it was not thought worth while to even dress his wound; as the overworked surgeons consid- ered it could not be otherwise than mortal. He confesses, himself, that he was simply waiting for the end; when with startling suddenness one of their number began to sing : "My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee we sing." Just here, Mr. Marshall says, he and Captain James McClintock joined in, and the trembling song went on, interrupted by the pitiful groans of those who were in mortal pain. He declares that "Probably no song was ever sung more earnestly ; certainly no words were ever uttered which cost more eflfort to some of us than those did." For, as he repeats, "It was a doleful little group of hurt Americans, off there under a tree, in the midst of the Cuban solitude; and nothing seemed 86 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS so dear to us, just then, as the homes which we might never see again, and the country which some of us had left behind forever." He goes on to tell us, that by and by, he noticed one voice faltered and lagged behind, after all the rest had finished the line, "Let freedom ring." Yet still that voice went on, though struggling and growing fainter; "Land — of — ^the — Pilgrims' — pride — Let freedom — " and then, — silence. For "one more son had died, as died the fathers," As history but repeats itself, posterity will find no more fitting words than those uttered by Gen- eral Pershing in his Thanksgiving address to his gallant companions-in-arms, albeit some twenty years had elapsed since that trying Cuban cam- paign. "Victory was our goal," said the American Commander-in-chief. "It is a hard-won gift of the soldier, to his country. Only the soldier knows the cost of a gift we now present to the Nation." COLUMBIA, THE GEM OF THE OCEAN COLUMBIA, THE GEM OF THE OCEAN O Columbia, the gem of the ocean, The home of the brave and the free. The shrine of each patriot's devotion, A world offers homage to thee. Thy mandates make heroes assemble. When Liberty's form stands in view; Thy banners make tyranny tremble, When borne by the red, white and blue; When borne by the red, white and blue. When borne by the red, white and blue. Thy banners make tyranny tremble, When borne by the red, white and blue. When war winged its wide desolation. And threatened the land to deform. The ark then of freedom's foundation, Columbia, rode safe thro' the storm: With the garlands of vict'ry around her. When so proudly she bore her brave crew. With her flag proudly floating before her, The boast of the red, white and blue. The boast of the red, white and blue. The boast of the red, white and blue, With her flag proudly floating before her. The boast of the red, white and blue. The star-spangled banner bring hither. O'er Columbia's true sons let it wave; May the wreaths they have won never wither. Nor its stars cease to shine on the brave: May the service, united, ne'er sever. But hold to their colors so true ; The army and navy forever, Three cheers for the red, white and blue; Three cheers for the red, white and blue. Three cheers for the red, white and blue, The army and navy forever. Three cheers for the red, white and blue. COLUMBIA, THE GEM OF THE OCEAN No Fourth of July would be complete, nor would any other patriotic occasion be entirely satisfying, without "Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue." It is the great standby of the American people for national festivities of every sort and description. Singing, as it does, the praises of both branches of the service, it is often called the Army and Navy Song. For that reason, it is peculiarly appropriate, when both sea and land forces are taking part in a martial celebration. While it is popularly known as "The Red, White, and Blue," its correct name is, "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean" ; and it was first sung in the Chestnut Street Theater, Philadelphia, in 1843. By a singular coincidence, this second song of the flag was written in the same year in which Francis Scott Key died, in Washington, D. C. Therefore it belongs to what may be called the first generation of National Ballads, along with 89 90 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS "Hail Columbia," "The Star-Spangled Banner," and "America." In England, the melody is known as "Britannia, the Pride of the Ocean" ; consequently, the name of Nelson replaces that of our national hero, Washington. Uncle Sam may not be rated as highly musical among the great family of nations ; nevertheless, he knows a good tune wherever he hears one; and there is no denying that there have been occa- sions when "What he thought he would require, he simply took," and the incident was closed. Some critics contend that we purloined this par- ticular melody; and they point out that it would be foolish to speak of a continent three thousand miles broad, and bounded on two of its sides by land, as the "Gem of the Ocean." They contend that such a title would apply more fitly to an island kingdom like Great Britain. Even our own Rear-Admiral Preble adds a dis- approving note, to the effect that the ranking order of our colors is first blue (of the union), then red, and lastly, white. Whereas, Great Brit- ain's flag might easily answer to the description "Red, White, and Blue." They forget that poetic license is very elastic, and possession is nine points of the law. Albeit, COLUMBIA 91 the authorship of this song has given rise to con- siderable, and to rather heated, discussion. Mr. W. H. Grattan Flood believes the English version goes back to 1842; and was written by Stephen B. Meany, and set to music by Thomas E. Williams. Also, that it was a year or two later, before it was transformed into "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean." Many editions give it as the work of David T. Shaw. Yet it is more likely we came by the tune hon- estly; the weight of evidence seeming to rest in favor of Thomas a'Becket, a talented musician and actor, of English birth, long resident in Phila- delphia, who states his claims clearly, in a letter written to Rear-Admiral Preble, dated December 16, 1876. He goes on to say that in the fall of the year 1843, while engaged as an actor at the Chestnut Street Theater, in Philadelphia, he received a call from Mr. D. T. Shaw, who was then singing at the Chinese Museum. Mr. Shaw was about to have a benefit performance ; and the object of his call was to request Mr. a'Becket to write a song expressly for that benefit night. He had brought with him for that purpose, some patriotic verses, of which he asked the opinion of Mr. a'Becket; this same being far from flattering. For in Mr. 92 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS a'Becket's judgment, these lines were not only ungrammatical, but so deficient in measure, as to be totally unfit for adaption to music. However, the men adjourned to the house of a friend, Mr. R. Harford, on Decatur Street; and there, Mr. a'Becket wrote the two first verses, in pencil; and composed the melody, seated at Miss Harford's piano. On reaching home, he added the third verse, wrote the introductory and ter- minating portions, made a fair copy, in ink, and gave it to Mr. Shaw, with the earnest request, at the same time, that Mr. Shaw should neither give, nor sell, a copy of the work. Mr. Shaw, for reasons of his own, did not see fit to respect his friend's wishes in the matter. A few weeks later, when Mr. a'Becket left Philadel- phia, for New Orleans, he was unpleasantly sur- prised to see a published copy of the song, enti- tled, "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean" ; written, composed, and sung by David T. Shaw, and ar- ranged by T. a'Becket, Esq. On Mr. a'Becket's return to Philadelphia, he called upon the publisher of the song, Mr. WilHg; who said he had purchased the song from Mr. Shaw. Mr. a'Becket then produced the original copy in pencil, and claimed ownership of the copy- right ; which Mr. Willig admitted, but at the same COLUMBIA 93 time he made some justly severe comments upon Mr. Shaw's conduct. The author then made a contract with Mr. T. Osborn, of Third Street, above Walnut, to pub- lish the song in partnership. Within a week, it appeared under its proper inscription, that is, — "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, written and composed by T. a'Becket, and sung by D. T, Shaw." Mr. a'Becket further remarks that Mr. E. L. Davenport, an eminent actor of the time, sang the song nightly, for some weeks. In this way, it became extremely popular; and was published, without any authority by T. Williams, Cheapside, under the title, "Britannia, the Gem of the Ocean." So that when the author visited London in 1847, still another unwelcome surprise awaited him; for he found the song claimed this time, as an English composition. "Perhaps it is," he admits wanly, "I, being an Englishman by birth." Ill-luck seems to have pursued the author- composer. During this absence from the land of his adoption, his publisher, Mr. Osborn, failed in business, and the plates of the song were sold to a Mr. Benteen, of Baltimore. "And in this way," concludes Mr. a'Becket sadly, "it went entirely out of my possession; much to my regret and loss." 94 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS Singularly enough, two of our national ballads, "Hail Columbia," and "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," were written by residents of the City of Brotherly Love; — written, on both occasions, by obliging friends, to help out actor-acquaintances, who were each about to have benefit perform- ances. But with this difference, that Judge Jo- seph Hopkinson, in 1798, was a life-long favorite of Fortune, did not suffer the same injustice, at the hands of his beneficiary, as did Mr. a'Becket, in 1843. Although, perhaps the virtue which consists in giving to everyone precisely what is his due, might concede that the idea and the name of the song probably originated with David T. Shaw, and that at his suggestion, the words and music were written by Mr. a'Becket. Linking the present with the past, comes news of the death of Thomas a'Becket, Jr., also a Phila- delphian; and a veteran music-teacher, who had just completed the forty-fifth year of his connec- tion with Girard College. This is an unusual record of service, and speaks for itself ; yet it was but one of his manifold activities. For many years, he was connected with the edi- torial departments of various publishing firms; and the editor-in-chief of a leading musical jour- nal writes, that he had a number of talks with Mr. COLUMBIA 95 a'Becket, Jr., on the subject of this national song; particularly in regard to the question of its au- thenticity. He mentions the statement that it was originally called "Britannia, the Gem of the Ocean," and also the assertion about its being printed six months in advance of "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean." But in concluding, he repeats, "I do not think, however, that this claim was ever successfully sustained. And to the best of my belief, Mr. a'Becket's father was the author of 'Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.' " DIXIE DIXIE LAND Dan. Emmet. I wish I was in de land ob cotton, Old times dar am not forgotten, Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land. In Dixie Land whar' I was born in, Early on one frosty mornin'. Look away! etc. CHORUS Den I wish I was in Dixie, Hoo-ray! Hoo-ray! In Dixie Land, I'll take my stand to lib and die in Dixie ; Away, away, away down south in Dixie, Away, away, away down south in Dixie. Old Missus marry Will, de weaber, Willium was a gay deceaber; Look away! etc. But when he put his arm around 'er He smiled as fierce as a forty pounder, Look away! etc. His face was sharp as a butcher's cleaber. But dat did not seem to greab 'er ; Look away! etc., Old Missus acted the foolish part. And died for a man dat broke her heart. Look away! etc. Now here's a health to the next old Missus, And all de gals dat want to kiss us; Look away! etc. But if you want to drive 'way sorrow. Come and hear dis song to-morrow. Look away! etc. Dar's buckwheat cakes an' Ingen' batter, Makes you fat or a little fatter; Look away! etc. Den hoe it down and scratch your grabble. To Dixie's land I'm bound to trabble. Look away! etc. Q/^J/l^lMA i^ V } jV ^ r r J r r ^ ^T S F=Ti ^ iian.-'h. ("!'►»»<• /»<>!»-% *j^. -^- tUtOM. 3iit~i&- ^^a^ ~ 3^'^^^^^?i»'i£^''^^'M tsl^^^^^^^'^ g^^'^— -^-^ ^ ' /g-'*±^»y <'--'fa«-y g'^"* '^ *^'*^'^ ^ .3«^-4^, g.- •'^gy< "-^ ''^^^ ' '^' FACSIMIUE OF AN AUTHOR'S COPY OF "DIXIE" Reproduced throug^h the courtesy of Alexander Hill DIXIE Both "Dixie" and its Northern competitor, , "John Brown's Body," were first sung by soldiers during the Civil War, and there is no gainsaying the mighty influence they exerted upon the hear- ers as well as the singers. Now everybody sings "Dixie," as it is one of the really popular songs of America which touched the right chord, and still holds it. It has been pronounced the best military tune that we have. Yet not every one is familiar with the story of this song, which is practically the only bit of war music that has outlived the Southern Confederacy. Written by a negro minstrel who was a white man, loved by Abraham Lincoln, and by many of the Northern soldiers, albeit it was one of the battlesongs of the Confederacy; originating in the North, and appropriated as a war ballad of the South, the rival, for a time, of even "Yankee Doodle," the story of "Dixie" is somewhat of a paradox, "from end to beginning" as an ingen- ious German puts it. Authorities disagree over even the derivation 99 loo OUR NATIONAL BALLADS of the word. Of this much we are sure. "Dixie" or "Dixie's Land" is a term which came by a popular error, to be identified with the South and Southern institutions during the Civil War. It seems that when slavery existed in New York, there was a man by the name of Dixie, who owned a large tract of land on Manhattan Island, before the word "sky-scraper" had been invented. This Dixie was a large slave-holder. The rapid increase of the slaves, and the growing strength of the Abolition sentiment combined, caused him to ship his slaves to the Southern States, to more secure slave sections, where the negroes had to work much harder, and fare worse. It was natural that those who had thus been sent off, should look back to their old homes, where many of them had been born, with feelings of keenest regret. And as they could not imagine any place that was better than Dixie's, it grew to represent a paradise on earth, which they cele- brated in their songs. "Seventy years ago," relates a veteran New Yorker, "no one ever heard of 'Dixie's Land' being other than Manhattan Island, until after- wards, when it was erroneously supposed to refer to the South, from its connection with pathetic negro allegory." The exiled slaves, sighing for DIXIE loi the old home which imagination and distance had advanced into a Delectable Country, showed the first symptoms of that highly contagious disease since known as "New Yorkitis." In the South, "Dixie" is regarded as meaning the Southern States, — ^principally in connection with the Mason and Dixon line, between the free and the slave states. As far back as 1763, two English mathematicians and surveyors — Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, were employed by Lord Baltimore and William Penn to establish the boundary line between Maryland and Penn- sylvania. However, it was the phrase originating in New York, that developed into a song, or rather into many songs, of which the refrain usually con- tained the word "Dixie," or "Dixie's Land." And from these rude chants, eventually developed the melody that for a time bade fair to surpass all others. The report has circulated in the South, that the composer was himself a negro, which is a mistake, of course. But the man who wrote "Dixie" was the originator of negro minstrel per- formances. Daniel Decatur Emmett, listed as an American actor, and song writer, was born in 1815, at Mt. 102 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS Vernon, Ohio. As a boy, he learned the printer's trade, but abandoned it to join the regular army, as fif er in the regimental band. Being under age, his father promptly took him out of the army. Then he ran away from his home, and went with the Spalding and Rogers circus. At twenty, in 1835, he became a member of Oscar Brown's Circus Company. About this time, when living in New York, he is said to have entertained a musical club to which he belonged, by blacking his face and hands with burnt cork, and inter- spersing his coon songs with jokes. It was thus the "negro minstrel" came into existence. The novelty once introduced, Mr. Emmett and his talents were in inordinate demand. Scxmuch so, that in 1842, together with Ffim k ^Bwrni T Wiffianr— Whitteefc— and — Richaxd-'PhetaEn, he formed what was known as the Virginia Min- strels, which was, of course, the very first negro minstrel company on record. Its first appear- ance was at the old Chatham Square Theatre, New York City, February 17th, 1843. Subsequently, the company appeared in Boston, and in England, where Emmett was wildly ap- plauded, and remained until 1844. After his return to this country, he was with Dan Bryant at No. 472 Broadway, New York, DANIEL DECATUR EMMETT DIXIE 103 from 1858 until 1861. It was during his engage- ment with this Bryant Company that he wrote, in 1859, the now famous song "Dixie," which was first produced at Mechanic's Hall. He said, him- self, that he wrote the song to order, one rainy Sunday in 1859. It seems that on the preceding Saturday night, the manager having charge of Mr. Emmett's per- formances came to him, and imperatively de- manded a new "walk around" for the following Monday night. And "Dixie" was accordingly dashed off, the next day, Sunday. By a singular chance, "Hail Columbia," was also composed at speed and under pressure, on the Sabbath *day. Whether our two minds, the conscious and sub- conscious, are in better working order during that special twenty-four hours, or whether the power of evil takes that time to tempt us from religious observance, is a question, but we will leave it to the psychologists and theologians to discuss. In an article on the "Songs of the War," writ- ten some years ago, Mr. Brander Matthews ex- plains that Emmett, having traveled so long with circuses, had often heard his fellow performers refer to the states south of the Mason and Dixon line as "Dixie's Land," very earnestly wishing themselves there, as soon as the northern climate 104 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS began to be too frosty and severe for those who live in tents like the Arabs. It was upon this plaint of the northern circus performers, "1 wish I was in Dixie," that Mr. Emmett built the song that was destined to become so famous as the distinctive Confederate war song, somewhat as Edgar Allan Poe is said to have woven the verses of his celebrated "Raven" about the single word "Nevermore." The freshly composed "walk around" made so great a hit with the New York play-going public, that the composer's name was made. "Dixie" was adopted at once by various bands of wander- ing minstrels, who sang and danced it, in all parts of the Union. It took a particularly firm root in New Orleans, when, in the fall of i860, Mrs. John Wood sang it in Brougham's burlesque of "Pocahontas." A New Orleans publisher, with- out any authority from the composer, had the air arranged and harmonized. And he issued it, still without consulting the composer, with words em- bodying the strong Southern feeling of the chief city of Louisiana. Mr. Matthews makes the comment that, just as from Boston, "John Brown's Body," spread through the North, so from Ne^y Orleans, did "Dixie" spread throughout the South. And DIXIE 105 where, shortly after, the South went to war, her soldiers caught it up, sang it in camp, and on the march, charged and died to its melody. And as the poets of the North strove to find fit words for the "John Brown" air, so the Southern verse makers wrote fiery lines to fit the measures of the other. A strange thing, that, by accident, a rollicking plantation jingle should come into such stern mar- tial usage. And that the first actual bloodshed of the Civil War should occur on the 19th of April, the very anniversary of the bloodshed that ush- ered in the War for Independence, at the Battle of Lexington, the day of 1861, when the Sixth Massachusetts regiment was attacked by a mob, while passing through Baltimore, and several men killed. It was a time of sad chaos in the land, of brother against brother. Yet, as it was firmly maintained by the Government that the tie that binds the United States is one that cannot be severed, no star was taken from the flag during the long period of conflict from 1861 to 1865, al- though over most of the Southern states, the flags of the Confederacy floated triumphantly for those four years. In the campaign of i860, "Dixie" had been used as a political song; and one of his historians io6 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS ventures the suggestion that it was perhaps some vague remembrance of that closely contested elec- tion which prompted Lincoln to have this particu- lar air played by a band in Washington, in 1865, a short time after the surrender at Appomattox. He remarked at the time, that "as we had cap- tured the rebel army, we had also captured the rebel tune." Poor Lincoln, harried by friends and foes alike, no one had greater need of a keen sense of humor to help him over the rough places, yet after his untimely death, one of his severest critics could write, "never before did one so con- stantly and visibly grow, under the discipline of incessant cares, anxieties and trials. Had he lived twenty years longer, I believe he would have steadily increased in ability to counsel his coun- trymen." The composer of "Dixie" became, during the same year, an independent manager. In 1878, he returned to his. old home at Mt. Vernon, Ohio. He seems to have retained his youthful vigor until late in life, as shown by this newspaper item of a few years ago. "Dan Emmett, the minstrel, fa- mous as the author of 'Dixie,' is making a tour of the South, with a minstrel troupe, and takes part in every performance, although he is more than eighty years old." •DAN" EMMETT, IN OLD AGE DIXIE 107 He was the author o£ many other oldtime fa- vorite songs. Scores of such popular melodies as "Old Dan Tucker" were composed by him, and the next day were in everybody's mouth; for he seemed to understand the popular taste to a nicety. His publications also include the songs, "Boatman's Daughter," "The Road to Rich- mond," "Walk Along John," and "Early in the Morning." He should have been comfort- ably wealthy, but for years before he died, he had ceased to receive any income from his com- positions. And though one fortune after another is said to have passed througn^^HsTiands, it did pass; leaving his later years to be spent in very strait- ened circumstances. But he did not actually suf- fer, as he had kind friends who helped to supply his few and simple wants. He lived until 1904, to the age of eighty-nine years, and now lies in the beautiful Mound View Cemetery, Mt. Vernon, on a knoll overlooking the Kokosing River. While there are musicians who contemptuously say that "Dixie" is "poor music," no one can dis- pute the fact that the song was a tremendous power on the battlefield, and continues to be a favorite in days of peace. A just critic contends io8 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS that Good Art is Art that serves its purpose, and starting with this premise, he argues that "Any song of the people, whatever its emotions may be, I has a right to be classed as National Music," even if it is not fitted to shine among the classics. MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND MARYLAND Hark to thy wandering son's appeal, Maryland ! My Mother State! To thee I kneel, Maryland ! For life and death, for woe and weal. Thy peerless chivalry reveal, And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, Maryland, my Maryland ! Thou wilt not cower in the dust, Maryland ! Thy beaming sword shall never rust, Maryland ! Remember Carroll's sacred trust, Remember Howard's warlike thrust. And all thy slumbers with the just, Maryland, my Maryland! ThoH wilt not yield the vandal toll, Maryland ! Thou wilt not crook to his control, Maryland ! Better the fire upon thee roll. Better the blade, the shot, the bowl. Than crucifixion of the soul, Maryland, my Maryland! — James Ryder Randall- MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND This famous campfire song o£ the South has been called the "Marseillaise" of the Confederacy, Briefly stated, the tune was the old German folk- song, "O Tannenbaum" which Longfellow has translated, "O Hemlock Tree," sung by students abroad, to the words "Lauriger Horatius," but to which James Ryder Randall's fiery words were fitted. So that a jovial college song became the setting of an impetuous war lyric. Mr. Randall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, January, 1839, and studied at Georgetown Col- lege; but he early removed to Louisiana. When the Civil War broke out he was living in New Or- leans, where he was engaged in newspaper work. Shortly afterward, he became professor of Eng- lish literature and the classics, at the small college of Poydras, at Pointe Coupee, on the Fausse Riviere, about seven miles from the Mississippi. And it was there, in April of 1861, that he read in the New Orleans Delta that the Massachusetts troops had been fired upon as they passed through Baltimore. zix 112 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS Maryland, like Delaware, refused to pass an ordinance of secession, and had declared herself neutral. The young, twenty-two year old pro- fessor had been impatient and downcast at the refusal of his native state to cast her lot with the Confederacy. However, in this incident, he fancied that he discerned the promise that the state would secede. The inspiration of this thought enabled him to produce at a single sit- ting, what is probably the finest poem of the Southern Cause. To use his own words, "This (newspaper) ac- count excited me greatly. I had long been ab- sent from my native city, and the startling event there inflamed my mind. That night I could not sleep, for my nerves were all unstrung. About midnight I rose, lit a candle, and went to my desk. Some powerful spirit appeared to possess me, and almost involuntarily I proceeded to write the song of 'My Maryland.' The whole poem was dashed off rapidly when once begun. It was not composed in cold blood, but under what may be called a conflagration of the senses, if not an in- spiration of the intellect. No one was more sur- prised than I was, at the widespread and instan- taneous popularity of the lyric. I had been so strangely stimulated to write." MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND 113 The next morning, Mr. Randall read the poem to the college boys, who suggested that he send it to the Delta, in which it was to make its debut, and attract immediate attention; being copied into nearly every Southern journal. The poet, in his remote place of residence, had the satisfaction of being convinced, that, what- ever might be the fate of the Confederacy, the song would survive it. This was true, for as it was published in the last days of April, 1861, when every eye was fixed on the border states, it was Mr. Randall's good for- tune to have been the medium through which the South spoke. It was a very young lady of Baltimore who se- lected the air for the words; Miss Jennie Cary. Her father's house was the headquarters for the Southern sympathizers of Baltimore. One even- ing the glee club was to hold its meeting in their parlors; and Miss Jennie, as the only musical member of the family, had charge of the pro- gram for the occasion. As her sister. Miss Hetty Cary, afterwards related, with a school-girl's eagerness to score a success, she searched in vain through her stock of songs and airs to secure some new and ardent expression of feelings that were by this time wrought up to the point of ex- 114 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS plosion. Finally Miss Hetty came to her rescue, and suggested the poem "Maryland, My Mary- land." Miss Hetty also produced the newspaper and began to declaim the verses, when quick as a flash Miss Jennie exclaimed, "Lauriger Hora- tius." This favorite college song had been in- troduced to the Cary household by a Yale student friend. It is said that night, when her rich con- tralto voice rang out the fervid stanzas, the ex- citement communicated itself with such effect to a crowd assembled beneath the open windows, "as to endanger seriously the liberties of the party." Later on, the lyric gained its first vogue as a war song when Miss Jennie sang it at a serenade given to the two sisters by the Maryland troops, in Beauregard's army at Fairfax Court House, Virginia. In 1866 Mr. Randall became editor-in-chief of the Augusta, Georgia, Constitutionalist, and sub- sequently held other positions in the South. He was the author of considerable verse, and a number of other, similar songs; but none of these ever attained the popularity of "Maryland, My Maryland." THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM THE BATTLE-CRY OF FREEDOM Geo F. Root. Yes, we'll rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again, Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom; We will rally from the hillside, we'll gather from the plain. Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom. CHORUS 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. We are springing to the call of our brothers gone before. Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom; And we'll fill the vacant ranks with a million freemen more. Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom. We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave. Shouting the battle-cry pf Freedom; And altho' they may be poor, not a man shall be a slave. Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom. So we're springing to the call from the East and from the West, Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom ; And we'll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best. Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom. THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM "For a peace loving country," comments one of her gallant defenders, "this United States of ours has done a very large amount of fighting." Now Mars and Music have always been close associates, far back into the misty days where established fact trails off into nebulous, cobwebby legend. In the pithy phrase of the Spartan poet, "With the iron, stern and sharp, Comes the playing on the harp." and, human nature being the one unchanging thing in all the universe, we are still at the same old business whenever occasion demands. Our boys who have been overseas of late, feel that the man who can supply music for the troops is almost as necessary as the man who supplies the munitions. For seasoned soldiers claim that no man can be a coward as long as he can hear the band playing. And the gramophone, the louder the better, that uplifts its intrepid voice in a dugout under fire, is a wondrous source of comfort. But to few indeed of us is given the privilege of "7 ii8 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS writing a song so replete with enthusiasm that it could sweep from ocean to ocean, during the ter- rible throes of a fierce national struggle. Three successive times, however, has that honor been accorded to one man, George Frederic Root of Chicago, the author, and the composer of the "Battle Cry of Freedom." Many a time was it ordered to be sung as the soldiers marched into action. Many a time, as its strains arose on the battlefield, was obedience made more easy to the thrilling command to follow the flag. One of our authors laughingly comments that with the pleasant humor which never deserts the American, even in the hard tussle of war, the gentle lines of "Mary had a Little Lamb" were fitted snugly to the tune, and many a regiment shortened a weary march, or went gaily into the fight singing, "Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was white as snow, Shouting the battle cry of freedom, And everywhere that Mary went The Lamb was sure to go. Shouting the battle cry of freedom." George F. Root was born at Sheflfield, Mass., August 30th, 1820. He studied imder Webb of Boston, and afterward in Paris, in 1850. Dur- THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM 119 ing the period between 1859 and 1871, he was a music publisher in Chicago. A singer himself, he was associated with Lowell Mason in popular- izing music in American schools, musical conven- tions, and teachers' institutes. The Chicago Uni- versity conferred upon him the degree of doctor of music. He wrote various cantatas, but is best known by his Civil War songs. The composer was living in New York, as or- ganist in a prominent church, and teacher of singing in several seminaries. As a result of his early training, some pleasing melodies occurred to him. Being a modest man, he thought them too simple to be published. Nevertheless, on playing some of them, he was besought by a pub- lisher to furnish the manuscript. About 1855, six of his songs were published by Hall & Son ; among which was one which gained instantaneous popularity, — "Rosalie, the Prairie Flower." These were all so favorably received, that they led to the production of a large number of popular melodies, many of which had wide currency, at the time, although they are now quite forgotten. Their author composer died at the age of sev- enty-five years, August 6th, i895i at Barley's Is- land. I20 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS "The Battle Cry of Freedom," came at the be- ginning of the war, a crucial time when not only the States, but households were angrily divided against each other. It is within the memory of living men, that the speeches of PhiUips and Garrison, the essays of Emerson, and the poems of Lowell and Whittier were condemned by those in the highest places, even in Boston, as being a "rub-a-dub" agitation. The Ohio River was the boundary line, south of which slavery was allowed, north of which it was prohibited. In general, the people of the Border States had no wish to secede, but many of them held that if the Gulf States wished to leave the Union, the Federal Government had no right to retain them by force. The^reat Puritan Southerner, Stonewall Jackson, is said to have deplored the institution of slavery, yet he was firmly convinced that it was guaranteed by the National Constitution. Few suspected that such a bloody contest was at hand, when the bombardment of Fort Sumter on that unlucky Friday of April 12th, 1861, set the entire country aflame, and precipitated the war for the Union. President Lincoln's call upon the loyal states for 75,000 men to aid in restor- THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM 121 ing the authority of the government, found every- where, confusion. The effect of this summons on the southern zone of border states was the immediate secession from the Union of North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas. These three at once joined the Confederacy; thus throwing enormous poHtical consequences upon the action of the four remain- ing border states, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. The most powerful of the four, Virginia, "Mother of Presidents," was ultimately won over to the side of the Confederacy. But so bitter was the struggle, that the state was torn in twain, and sturdy Virginians west of the Alleghanies straightway formed a new commonwealth pledged to the defence of the Union. Their motto tells its own significant tale, "Montani semper liberi:" "The mountaineers are always free." The attitude of Maryland was very dangerous. Had it not been for the unwavering loyalty of Governor Wick, and the promptness with which Governor John Andrew, of "John Brown" fame, hurried the forces of Massachusetts to the front, the first task of the Federal army might have been to win back the Federal Capital. 122 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS At the close of 1862, after many marches and countermarches, the two opposing armies came face to face, in middle Tennessee. A battle was necessary, both for Bragg and for Rosecrans, as the long campaign begun in July must be brought to a decisive close. Men of one nation, yet foes, it was now to be seen which side could annihilate the other. A boyish Union soldier re- lates that their marching had been done in cold, rainy weather, over miserable roads, and then to pass the night on the damp ground was not a pleasant experience. As he tells us, "More than once, I laid two rails together, to make a sort of trough, elevating one end of the trough in order to keep it off the ground, and slept in it all night, with my oilcloth over me, and my cap over my face to protect me from a drizzling rain. "Often on the march," he continues, "when so fagged that we could scarcely drag one foot after the other, some one would start a song, and it would be taken up, company after company, regi- ment after regiment, until the whole brigade was singing it, and presently, we would forget that we were tired. "Well do I remember that piercing cold night of the first day's fight at Stone River. Twice had the men waded the stream in water waist THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM 123 deep, and of course their clothes were still wet, for they had no fires. Never perhaps has there been a more weird New Year's party than in a dimly lighted log cabin on that same night of December 31st, 1862, when a council of war was held on the question of a retreat to Nashville. General Thomas' laconic, 'This army can't retreat,' set- tled the question. But it was a battle which snatched victory out of defeat by a very narrow margin, with a loss of 10,000 men on each side. "Small wonder there was so much gloomy feel- ing at the nearby town of Murfreesboro. Out- side of the terrible losses in the army, President Lincoln had just issued the Emancipation Proc- lamation, and this was most unpalatable to the large number of Kentucky and Tennessee regi- ments among the troops. An eye witness speaks of a number of officers who had resigned, or had tendered resignations, on this very account. He states that one day when a whole batch of these resignations came in, all written in the same handwriting, and coming from one regiment, in- cluding nearly all the officers in it, the instigator of these letters was found and dismissed, with every mark of ignominy, his shoulder straps were cut off, and he was drummed out of camp. But while this heroic remedy caused the officers whom 124 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS he had misled, to withdraw their resignations, yet the thing rankled, the sore was there. "By a happy accident, the glee club which came down from Chicago, a few days afterward, brought with them the brand-new song, "We'll Rally Round the Flag, Boys," and it ran through the camp like wildfire. The effect was little short of miraculous. It put as much spirit and cheer into the army as a splendid victory. Day and night you could hear it by every camp fire and in every tent. Never shall I forget how those men rolled out the line, "And although he may be poor, he shall never be a slave." "I do not know," adds the writer, "whether Mr. Root ever knew what good work his song did for us there, but I hope so." And the state Militia Agent of Michigan at Nashville relates another anecdote of the song. "There had been a number of skirmishes, and some of the wounded had been taken into a large ward which occupied the entire body of the church on Cerry Street. As I was passing this post hospital my attention was arrested by the sing- ing, in rather a loud tone, of 'Rally Round the Flag, Boys,' by one of the patients inside. While THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM 125 listening to the beautiful music of that popular song, I remarked to a nurse who was standing in the doorway that the person who was singing must be in a very merry mood, and could not be so very sick. " 'You are mistaken, sir,' he replied. 'The poor fellow who is singing that good old song is grap- pling with death, — has been dying all day long. I am his nurse,' he explained, 'and the scene so affected me that I was obliged to leave the room, for he is just about breathing his last.' "I stepped quietly into the ward, — the thing was so unbelievable. True enough, the brave fellow was very near his end. His eyes were already fixed in death, yet he was struggling with all his remaining strength against the grim monster, while at the same time there gushed forth from his patriotic soul almost incoherently, the words, "We'll rally once again, which had so often cheered him on the weary march, or strengthened his courage when enter- ing the field of blood, in defence of that flag. Finally, he sank away into his death slumber, and joined his Maker's command that is marching to that far-off, better land, still the last audible sound that escaped his lips, was, "Rally boys, — rally once again!" JOHN BROWN'S BODY JOHN BROWN'S BODY Charles S. Hall. John Brown's body lies a-mould'ring in the grave, John Brown's body lies a-mould'ring in the grave, John Brown's body lies a-mould'ring in the grave, His soul goes marching on! Glory, glory hallelujah ! Glory, glory, glory hallelujah! Glory, glory hallelujah! His soul is marching on. The stars of heaven are looking kindly down. The stars of heaven are looking kindly down. The stars of heaven are looking kindly down, On the grave of old John Brown! He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord, He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord, He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord! His soul is marching on! John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back, John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back, John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back! His soul is marching on! JOHN BROWN'S BODY It needs but the sudden pressure of some mo- mentous circumstance, to bring to the surface that strong, patriotic sentiment which forms the deep, underlying strata, of the ever practical American mind. We plucked "Yankee Doodle" from the ridicule of the enemy, during the Revolution; "Hail Co- lumbia" was a reflection of the warlike spirit of 1798, when a conflict with France was thought to be inevitable; "The Star-Spangled Banner" sprang from an incident of the War of 1 812, while from the Civil War we have obtained at least two compositions which, considered simply as war songs, are more effective than any of those that went before; these two are "Marching Through Georgia," and "John Brown's Body," so well known as the marching song of the nation, — that rugged chant to which a million of the soldiers of the Union kept time. They served a great purpose, did the latter songs, and were powerful agents in the result, — a fact that was naively admitted by the enemy. 129 130 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS Quite by accident, the North, through the agency of an Ohio man, — Dan Emmett, — gave to the South her chief war-song, "Dixie." And quite as unexpectedly did a Southern camp-meet- ing tune, burst from its chrysalis to become the most important war-song of the North under the name of "Glory Hallelujah," or "John Brown's Body." John Brown himself was an enigma ; a strange medley of sanguine, impracticable temperament, unbounded courage, and but little wisdom, min- gled with crude visionary ideality. Being in- spired by Biblical precepts, and Old Testament hero-worship, brought him to that mental state where he could lay his own child upon the altar, without a pang. In his Kansas camps, he prayed and saw vi- sions; believed that he wielded the sword of the Lord and of Gideon; had faith that the angels encompassed him. Yet his fighting was of the prevailing type, and was justifiable only, say his more truthful biographers, on the score of de- fensive retaliation; for some of his acts were quite as criminal and atrocious as the worst of those committed by the Border Ruffians. John Brown dreamed of freedom for the slave, during twenty long years ; and he died trying to JOHN BROWN'S BODY 131 make his dream a reality. Had there been no John Brown, we might never have had an Abra- ham Lincoki ; for the manner of his death was of the utmost importance in the development of the Civil War. Yet to quote Mr. Lincoln's own calm, common sense opinion of the Harper's Ferry episode, "John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate." In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not suc- ceed. Some, however, claim that the real turning- point in the history of the New World rested with John Brown at Harper's Ferry; as the outbreak was but a violent climax, capping the great series of political sensations as far back as 1852. Im- portant effects follow rapidly upon this brave but quixotic attempt. It was just three years and thirty days after Brown struck his blow, that Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. But for Brown's career, it might have been sixty years before the same result was reached. Our big advances along the path of right and justice have always been won, in the main, by the bulk of the nation; which calls to mind Lin- 132 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS coin's remark that "the Lord must have thought a great deal of plain, ordinary people, — he made so many of them." It is a historical fact, that the Declaration of Independence was hotly op- posed by the majority of the commercial mag- nates of those times, upon the ground that it would hurt business, and it is said that Lincoln was seriously urged not to issue the Emancipa- tion Proclamation because it would affect the price of stocks. John Brown was a Connecticut man, born at Torrington, in 1800, of Puritan ancestry. With ambition curbed to irritability by the fetters of hard labor, privation, and enforced endurance, his character seems to have developed along the line of religious fanaticism. It is agreed, that his courage partook of the recklessness of insan- ity. He never stopped to count odds. "What are five to one?" he would ask, and at another time, he said, "One man in the right, ready to die, will chase a thousand." He probably believed that he led a charmed life ; for he boasted that he had been fired at as many as thirty times, and only his hair had been touched. He boasted that he could tell a strange sheep at once in his flock; and that such was his power over animals, that he could make a cat or a dog so uncomfortable as JOHN BROWN'S BODY 133 to wish to leave the room, by simply fixing his eyes upon it. His voice is described as deep, clear and pleas- ant, which must have contributed greatly toward his ascendency over others. He had been twice married, and of the nine- teen children born to him, eleven were living at the time when the Kansas-Nebraska Bill plunged the country into heated political strife. Four of his sons were in the first rush of emi- grants who moved away to the new territory. Later on, several others went also, and John Brown himself, always of a roving disposition, followed them, with money and arms contributed in the North, at the time when the Border Ruffian hostilities broke out. Then, using his sons as a nucleus, he was able to gather a band of about fifteen or twenty ad- venturers, who presently began to make his name a terror to his opponents. He was fully persuaded that he was God's mes- senger to destroy slavery; and it was' in the struggle which the Free State men were making for the control of the section that he first ap- peared as a public character. Osawatomie is a village of Miami County, and John Brown's nick- name arose from the fact that it was there he won 134 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS national renown by the heroic stand he made against an overwhelming force of invaders from Missouri. It was a period when slavery was being ex- tended very rapidly, and it is only just to say that John Brown had much to do with the successful contest which kept it out of the Territory of Kansas. On every side, feeling was at fever- heat. There was a perpetual guerrilla warfare going on in a vague, desultory way. The op- posing parties were so sharply defined that their labels attached even to the dumb animals. Peo- ple spoke of an anti-slavery colt or a pro-slavery cow. These things seem incredible to us now. But as Frank Sanborn once declared, at that time, it was difficult for any man to have much to do with the affairs of Kansas, even at long range, without developing a crack in his brain. John Brown's attitude is not so much to be wondered at ; for in this conflict he had seen two of his own sons shot down. One was killed out- right, the other wounded to the death by the Border Ruffians, without trial or mercy and a third had been rendered insane by cruel treat- ment. John Brown's education was scant, and his reading limited. His passionate hatred of the institution of slavery, intensified by his per- JOHN BROWN'S BODY 135 sonal and family sacrifices, together with a year's border fighting, suddenly put thought into action ; and while it is impossible to trace precisely how and when the Harper's Ferry invasion first took practical shape in John Brown's mind, it is al- together probable that it was an outgrowth of his Kansas experiences. Brown's earliest collision with the Border Ruf- fians had occurred in the spring and summer of 1856. In the autumn of that year, the United States troops dispersed his band, and generally speaking, suppressed the civil war. In January, 1857, we find him in the Eastern States again, appealing for arms and supplies to various com- mittees, and in various places, an appeal which only partly succeeded; although together with his strong personality, he had an impressive man- ner, equally persuasive and commanding. In garb half deacon, half soldier, his tall, slender figure gave him rather a military bearing. Some time during the fifties, before matters had reached the acute stage, Julia Ward Howe, since famous for her "Battle Hymn of the Re- public," met him on one occasion, at her own house in South Boston. Her husband. Dr. Sam- uel Gridley Howe, inspired by the spirit and ex- ample of Lord Byron, had spent five years of his 136 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS young manhood aiding the Greeks in their strug- gle for liberty, against the Turks. Still a firm lover of freedom, he was a prominent Abolition- ist himself, and was deeply interested in Brown's career. Mrs. Howe describes John Brown as a middle- aged man, with hair and beard of amber color, streaked with gray. To use her words, "He looked a Puritan of the Puritans, forceful, con- centrated and self-contained." Another person is impressed with his thin, worn, resolute face in which there were signs of the hidden fire which might wear him out, and practically did so, but nothing of pettiness, or baseness of thought. John Brown was nearly six feet tall, but spare, although broad shouldered. Otherwise accounts vary as to the appearance of the man. This can be largely accounted for by the fact, that later on in life, he grew the great, spade-like white beard and heavy white mustache to disguise his coun- tenance, when he decided on postponing the Harper's Ferry raid, in order to return to Kan- sas, after the Doyle murders. Taught from childhood really to fear God, and to keep his commandments, he believed absolutely in the divine authenticity of the entire Bible. He had also a very singular faith that an all- JOHN BROWN'S BODY 137 seeing Jehovah had created the Alleghany moun- tains from all eternity, as the predestined refuge for a body of fugitive slaves. In his youth, he had traversed those lonely defiles as a surveyor, and knew special points which could be held by a hundred men against a thousand. "He was simply a belated Covenanter," claims Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "a man who Sir Walter Scott's pen might have drawn." All reasonable argument he met with his rigid dogfmatic formulas, his selected proverbs, his fa- vorite texts of Scripture. "A few men in the right, and knowing they are right, can overturn a King." "Twenty men in the Alleghanies could break slavery to pieces in two years," he was ac- customed to say, and the man was intensely in earnest. On the 4th of July, 1859, under an assumed name, John Brown, with two sons, and another follower, appeared near Harper's Ferry, and soon after rented the Kennedy Farm, in Maryland, five miles from the town; where he made a pre- tense of cattle-dealing and mining. But in re- ality, he was secretly collecting his rifles, revolv- ers, ammunition, pikes, blankets, tents and mis- cellaneous articles for a campaign. Harper's Ferry was a town of five thousand in- 138 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS habitants; and lying between the slave states of Maryland and Virginia, at the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah rivers, where the united streams flow through a picturesque gap in the single mountain range called the Blue Ridge. A bridge across each stream, connects it with the opposite shore ; and the Government factory and buildings, which utilized the water- power of the Potomac, lay in the lowest part of the point of land between the streams. The sit- uation was not at all practicable for the protrac- ted guerilla warfare contemplated in Brown's plan. It was a favorite saying of his, to "Give a slave a pike, and you make him a man." He conceived the idea that upon a certain signal, the slaves from many plantations would come to him in such num- bers that he and they would become masters of the situation, with little or no bloodshed. The result of that fatal mistake is a matter of his- tory. It was on a Sunday evening, October i6th, 1859, that Brown gave his final orders; humanely directing his men to take no life where they could avoid it. Placing a few pikes and other imple- ments in his one-horse wagon, he started with his company of eighteen followers at eight o'clock, JOHN BROWN JOHN BROWN'S BODY 139 leaving five men behind. They cut the telegraph wires on the way, and reached Harper's Ferry about eleven o'clock, — fourteen white men, and four negroes, with their leader. Brown himself broke open the army gates, took the watchmen prisoners, and made that place his headquarters. Separating his men into small detachments, he took possession of, and attempted to hold, the two bridges, the arsenal and the rifle factory. Next, he sent six of his men five miles into the country, to bring in several prominent slave-own- ers, and their slaves. This was accomplished before daylight, and all were brought as prison- ers to Brown, at the armory. As the day dawned upon the town, an irregu- lar street-firing broke out between Brown's sen- tinels and individual citizens with firearms. The alarm was carried to neighboring towns, and the killed and wounded on both sides augmented the excitement. By Monday noon. Brown was driven to take refuge with his diminished force in the engine- house, a low, strong brick building in the armory yard, where they barricaded the windows and im- provised loop-holes, and into which they took with them ten selected prisoners as hostages. But now the whole country had become thoi:- 140 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS oughly roused. Sundry military companies poured in, from the nearby towns and by night the Government had landed a detachment of ma- rines, under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee, so soon to be himself the commander of a far greater insurrection, but at that time he was on the staff of General Scott. At daylight, on Tuesday morning. Brown was summoned to surrender, and on his refusal, a storming party of marines battered in the door. The great scheme of liberation, elaborately built up for nearly three years, was in utter collapse, after five minutes of conflict. One marine was shot dead in the assault. Brown fell under se- vere sword and bayonet wounds, two of his sons lay dead or dying, four of five of his men were made prisoners, only two remaining unhurt after having held the town for about thirty-six hours. Brown was sentenced to be hung on December 2nd, and his companions were to be executed the 1 6th. From beginning to end, this enterprise was illegal and rash, but it sprang from a gen- erous impulse. The old man's courage, and his utter self-devotion to his cause, appealed most strongly to the sympathy of the opponents of slavery, and even compelled words of praise from the lips of Henry A. Wise, the Governor of Vir- JOHN BROWN'S BODY 141 ginia, who signed His death warrant. The irre- pressible conflict between bondage and liberty was fast approaching its crisis, and the tragedy of Harper's Ferry may be considered as an intro- ductory act to the tremendous struggle that was to ensue. Mrs. Howe describes the sad weeks of John Brown's imprisonment and narrates that the day of his death was one of general mourning in New England. Even there, however, people were not all of the same mind, for she adds, "I heard one friend say that John Brown was a pig-headed old fool." While their captive was still alive, though un- der sentence of death, the poet, Edmund Clarence Steadman, prophesied to the Virginians that, "Each drop from old Brown's life veins. Like the red gore of the dragon. May spring up a vengeful fury, hissing Through your slave-worn lands! And old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, May trouble you more than ever, when You've nailed his coffin down!" Sympathy for his boldness and misfortune came to him in large measure. The feeling which his execution called forth in Massachusetts found 142 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS relief in a mass meeting at Faneuil Hall. That evening, crowds of young men and boys paraded the streets of Boston, singing to a familiar air, a monotonous lament, of which the burden was : "Tell John Andrew, Tell John Andrew, Tell John Andrew, John Brown's dead!" A little more than a year after this meeting at Faneuil Hall, came news that thrilled the whole country to the heart ; — the news of that first shot against the flag at Fort Sumter. As near as we can trace, it was probably in April of 1861, just at the time when "My Mary- land" was being widely sung throughout the South, that its loyal rival, "John Brown's Body," was pieced together by a Glee Club, a quartet of young men in the Second Battalion of Massachu- setts Infantry, afterward nicknamed "The Ti- gers," which had received orders to occupy Fort Warren, — one of the defenses of Boston, — and to place it in as good repair as possible. From this Glee Club, the whole company had learned the old Methodist hymn tune with "Glory Hallelujah" words. The authorship of the orig- inal song is claimed by Mr. William Steffe, a one- time popular Sunday School composer. It is said JOHN BROWN'S BODY 143 to have been a prime favorite around Charleston, both in the colored churches and among the fire companies. As a camp meeting hymn, the verses began : "Say, brothers, will you meet us? Say, brothers, will you meet us? Say, brothers, will you meet us? On Canaan's happy shore?" The song dated from about 1856, and in the four years between the composition of the tune, and the outbreak of the war, the camp meeting hymn had ample time to drift northward and be- come generally familiar, for it had already ap- peared in some of the old Methodist hymnals. There was a majestic simplicity in the rhythm that adapted itself to lighten labor. So while en- trenchments were being thrown up by the sol- diers, and the rubbish of the old fort carried away, the men sang the swinging tune with a vim that made the picks and shovels ply merrily at their task. It was not long before a spirit of mischief prompted the young soldiers to improvise verses of a less sacred character, to sing to the same melody. As it happened, one of the singers in the Glee Club was an honest Scotchman, by the name of John Brown, who was the good-natured butt of many of their jokes. Finally a jest was 144 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS made of the similarity of his name to that of John Brown of Osawatomie, and this, it is claimed, is how the first verse originated, and the song was called, "John Brown's Song." The Scotch John Brown was unfortunate enough to lose his life later on, in trying to swim a river, during a re- treat of the Union forces. The second battalion of Massachusetts had built upon going to the front in a body; but as their services were not accepted, as an indepen- dent organization, the persevering Glee Club, to- gether with many others of "The Tigers," en- listed in the Twelfth Massachusetts Volunteers, commanded by Colonel Fletcher Webster. This is why we find "Glory Hallelujah" so closely as- sociated with the history of the Twelfth Massa- chusetts, for there is not the slightest doubt that it was this Webster regiment which first adopted "John Brown's Body," as a marching song, and bore it along toward popularity. Many people heard it for the first time on Boston Common, when Colonel Webster's men marched across it on their way from Fort Warren to the Providence de- pot, to take cars for New York. These soldiers sang it also in New York, as they marched down Broadway, July 24th, 1861, and it created the wild- est enthusiasm among the assembled multitude. JOHN BROWN'S BODY 145 In fact, they sang it incessantly until August, 1862, when Colonel Webster died. By that time, the tune had been taken up by the nation at large, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers were marching forward to the fray, with the name of John Brown upon their lips. "John Brown's Body" was the song of the hour. There was a special taunt to the South in the use of the name of the martyr of Abolition, while to the North that name had become as a battle slogan, and the tune which had begun life as a Sunday School hymn, proved one of the best marching melodies and one of the most military songs of the time. It has taken firm root in England as well as in our own country. Even in the far distant Sou- dan, we are told that General Kitchener's troops sometimes beguiled the wearisome route by sing- ing this Union war song. During the late conflict of nations, "John Brown's Body" has been a favorite with many of the armies, both in the camp and along the march. Tommy Atkins seems to be especially devoted to this song, and it is said that even in the earlier months of the war, an American traveller might hear the strains of "John Brown's Body" echoing from almost any camp of British soldiers in any part of the world. THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord : He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored ; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on. Cho. — Glory, glory, hallelujah ! Glory, glory, hallelujah ! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps. They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I have read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps; His day is marching on.- I have read His fiery gospel writ in rows of burnished steel! "As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal! Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel," Since God is marching on.- He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is searching out the hearts of men before His judgment seat, O be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.- In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea. With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC "The mightiest of out war songs is 'John Brown's Body' ennobled into 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' " asserts a well-known writer, with considerable finality. And during the early days of our entry into the great world conflict an army visitor warmly assents. He relates, "The other day down in a southern camp, I heard 20,- 000 men, led by six military bands, singing all to- gether, — " 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.' And when you hear 20,000 men singing that song in unison, you will realize what the coming of our troops to France is going to mean." Still another man adds his experience: "The theater at Yaphank will hold 10,000 men; and i if you've never heard that many male voices doing 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' you simply l:an't imagine what patriotic singing can be." ' That one ringing, resplendent lyric seems to 149 150 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS stand apart, in a class of its own. To have writ- ten such poem is greatness and glory enough for any woman; though she was probably the most notable woman that America has ever produced. On the occasion of the bestowal upon her of the degree of Doctor of Letters, by Brown Uni- versity, Julia Ward Howe was formally charac- terized as "author, philanthropist, mother, friend of the slave, the prisoner, and of all who suffer ; singer of the Battle Hymn of freedom." She was born a century ago. May 27, 1819, three days after Queen Victoria; and was the daughter of Samuel Ward, a distinguished and wealthy New York banker. Her earliest years were passed in a fine old house facing Bowling Green; which was a region of high fashion in those days. A literary prodigy from childhood, — in after life, she spoke French, Italian, Ger- man, or Greek, if necessary, to the distinguished foreigners who frequently visited at her pleasant home in Boston. For her magnetic personality, keen wit, and wonderful charm of manner made her an ideal hostess. But, casting all else aside, we may sum up her life achievement in this one sentence. She wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic!" The tune, of course, was in existence long be- BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 151 fore the words were penned. The poem was written to fit the melody, and sprang into being as the inspiration of a single night. '^At twenty-three, Julia Ward was married to Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, of Boston. That was in 1843, ^■iid the newly-married couple went im- mediately to Europe. Dr. Howe was, at the time, head of the Massachusetts School for the Blind, at South Boston; arid had attained celeb- rity as the instructor of Laura Bridgman. Dr. and Mrs. Howe passed the winter on the Continent, returning to America in 1844, where they settled in South Boston. The young wife grew to love the city of her adoption; and when, in 185 1, her husband was called to the editorship of. The Boston Commonwealth, Mrs. Howe's op- portunity came. Her writings made the paper famous, during those seething years when the abolition sentiment was growing and gaining im- petus. Dr. Howe, being her senior by twenty years, was beyond the age of military service, when the Civil War broke out. Yet as a skilled physician, he was fitted to render invaluable assistance. His life-long solicitude for those in need was di- rected in this crisis, to yet broader channels. Faithfully investigating the condition and health 152 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS of the army, he became a vigorous arm of that patriotic body of men and women, which con- stituted th£ United States Sanitary Commission. /iNlaturally,^ Washington, the ^Capital, was the great center of interest. In December of 1861, Dr. and Mrs. Howe, the Reverend Dr. James Freeman Clarke, and Mrs. Clarke, together with Governor John A. Andrew visited that city for a few days. And Mrs. Howe explains, that as their train sped on through the darkness, they saw, in vivid contrast, the fires of the pickets set to guard the line of the railroad. McClellan's army was encamped near the cap- ital; and one day, the party drove several miles out from the city, to witness a review of the troops. But as ill luck would have it, the ma- noeuvres were interrupted by a sudden attack of the enemy; and instead of the promised parade, they saw some reenforcements gallop hastily to the aid of a small force of Union soldiers, that had been surprised and surrounded. Of course, this unexpected assault by the Confederates caused great excitement, and delayed the return of the visitors ; as their route was much impeded by the homeward marching of the troops, who al- most filled the highway. Mrs. Howe was the fortunate possessor of a BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 153 well-trained, clear, mezzo-soprano voice of un- usual range and exquisite quality. As the prog- ress toward the city was very slow, owing to the sea of soldiers surrounding their carriage, — to beguile the irksome moments, — she began to sing army songs; in which the rest of the party joined. Among others, the "John Brown" song seemed to specially please the soldiers, who them- selves took up the strain, calling out to the party, at intervals, "Good for you!" "Give us some more !" Just then, as she goes on to tell us, "my dear ' old pastor. Dr. Clarke, said to me, 'Mrs. Howe, why do you not write some good words for that stirring tune? Words worthy of it, and worthy of this occasion ?' " Mrs. Howe protested that she felt unequal to the task. But Dr. Clarke only insisted the more. "And so," she admits, "to pacify the dear old man, I promised to try." Either that promise, or the swinging tune, sung by the marching throng, had made so deep an impression on the mind of the author, that, awak- ening before dawn, the next morning, she found herself attempting to give form and shape to shadowy words that seemed capable of being sung to the "John Brown" music. She has described 154 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS how line after line swiftly molded itself in her brain. And when she had thought out the last of the five stanzas, she was so afraid to risk the danger of forgetting them, that she sprang hastily out of bed, and groped around in the dim gray light, until she found a pen, and a scrap of paper on which she wrote, scarcely seeing them, those precious lines. This was not an unusual proceeding with Mrs. Howe ; for long habit had accustomed her to writ- ing thus, in a room darkened for the repose of her babies. On this occasion, she crept quietly back to bed, saying to herself, as she fell asleep, "I like this better than anything I have ever writ- ten." Dr. Clarke was greatly pleased with the verses, when she read them to him a day or two later; and probably said, "I told you so." She took them to James T. Fields, soon after her return to Boston. At that time Mr. Fields was editor of the Atlantic Monthly; and the title "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was of his devising. The poem was published in the February, 1862, issue of that magazine; and she tells us, that although it was somewhat praised, it did not at first receive special mention. However, she does not seem to have known how rapidly the hymn was making From a tt\onjgT&\}n, copyngnt, I'M'J, By J. E. Purdy, Boston JULIA WARD HOWE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 155 its way; nor how strong a hold it was taking upon the people in general. In the course of a year, it was printed broadcast in newspapers, and army hymn-books. It was, in fact, the poem of the hour ; and the great Union Armies were marching to its echoing stanzas. The Fighting Chaplain McCabe, of the 122nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, read the poem, in the Atlantic, and was so impressed with the lines that he committed them to memory, before rising from his chair. He took the song with him to the front; and finally, to that dismal place of con- finement, Libby Prison, where he was sent, after being captured at Winchester. There, when the news leaked, through a negro servant who brought food for the prisoners, that the Battle of Gettysburg had resulted in a victory for the Northern forces, gaunt men leaped to their feet, shouting and embracing one another in a frenzy of joy and triumph. And Chaplain Mc- Cabe, standing in the middle of that great, bar- ren room, lifted up his powerful voice and sang, "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;" till every voice took up the chorus; and the walls of Libby Prison resounded with the gladsome shout of "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!" 156 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS After his release, Chaplain McCabe came to Washington; where, before a large audience, he told of how the federal prisoners had been in- spired by the hymn. And when he came to that night in Libby Prison, and sang the "Battle Hymn" once more, the effect was like magic. While above the tumult of applause, came the voice of Abraham Lincoln, pleading, as the tears rolled down his cheeks, "Sing it again !" Following her husband's death, in 1876, Mrs. Howe spent much time in lecturing and travelling. She was also a member of a large number of women's clubs. As a speaker, special mention is made of her measured, musical speech. She was also a Unitarian minister, and active in the work of that denomination ; she did much for the cause of liberal thought, at a time when such a stand required much moral courage. Those who knew her intimately, said that her unfailing optimism was the great source and sup- port of her manifold activities. For she never grew old at heart, and in her beautiful old age, she retained her brilliant intellectual powers. At the age of ninety, she came to New York, to read a patriotic poem, at the Hudson-Fulton celebration. And at ninety-one, she received from Smith College, the degree of Doctor of Let- BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 157 ters ; appearing at the exercises of that occasion, in a wheel-chair. The end came peacefully, at her summer home, near Newport, Rhode Island, October 17, 1910. It is given to but few of us to live so long and so distinguished a life as did Julia Ward Howe. She possessed, in a remarkable degree, the gentle art of growing old gracefully. When she was nearing the end of her span of years, she confided to a friend that the world grew constantly more interesting to her. "The bowl of life," she added, "grew sweeter as she drank it; all the sugar was at the bottom." ^ ^ H«w^ Asked to speak of her masterpiece, she- had this to say : "The wild echoes of that fearful struggle have long since died away ; and with them, all memories of unkindness between ourselves and our south- ern brethren. But those who once loved my hymn, still sing it. I hope and believe that it stands for what our whole country now believes in, — that is, — the sacredness of human liberty. "My poem did some service in the Civil War, I wish very much that it may do good service in the Peace, which I pray God, may never more be broken." WE ARE COMING, FATHER ABRAHAM THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE J. S. Gibbons. We are coming, Father Abram, three hundred thousand more, From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore ; We leave our ploughs and workshops, our wives and children dear, With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear; We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before. We are coming, Father Abram, three hundred thousand more ! If you look across the hilltops that meet the northern sky, Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry; And now the wind an instant tears the cloudy veil aside, And floats aloft our spangled flag, in glory and in pride; And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave m.-rsic pour. We are coming. Father Abram, three hundred thousand more ! If you look all up our valleys where the growing harvests shine. You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into line ; And children from their mothers' knees are pulling at the weeds. And learning how to reap and sow, against their country's needs ; And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door — We are coming. Father Abram, three hundred thousand more! You have called us and we're coming, by Richmond's bloody tide. To lay us down for freedom's sake, our brothers' bones beside; Or from foul treason's savage grasp to wrench the murderous blade, And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade. Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone before — We are coming. Father Abram, three hundred thousand more ! WE ARE COMING, FATHER ABRAHAM A WAR song written by a Quaker sounds like an absurdity. For not only do the Friends discour- age, as a rule, the art of music, as being among the vanities of a frivolous world, but, according to one of their most emphatic tenets, a member of that faith is bound to make it a matter of con- science to condemn all war, as inconsistent with the precept and spirit of the Gospel. Yet a Hick- site Quaker was the author of this ringing call to arms which helped greatly to promote the patri- otic uprising it declared. He had a reasonable leaning toward wrath, however, in cases of emer- gency, as his son-in-law, Mr. James H. Morse, neatly put it, in a letter to a friend. We are apt to forget, that active opposition to slavery originated, not in the relentless con- science of the Puritan, nor yet in the less rigid moral sense of the Cavalier, but among the peace- loving Quakers, whom both so cruelly perse- cuted. As early as 1688, some of the followers of William Penn declared that the buying, selling and holding men in bondage, all these three, were 161 1 62 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS irreconcilable with the principles of the Chris- tian religion. The very first vote against slavery was in 1688, by the monthly assembly of Germantown Quak- ers. The minutes of that meeting were sent to the yearly meeting at quaint old Burlington, N. J. But this larger body declined to confirm the stand taken by their brethren of near Philadelphia. At this time, and for long after, the agitation against slavery was chiefly confined to the Quakers ; who were as persistent in their beliefs, as they were unobtrusive in their worship. A century and a half had not changed their attitude, in the least; and James Sloan Gibbons, born July ist, 18 10, in Wilmington, Del., and brother of Dr. Henry Gibbons, had already joined the abolition movement in 1830, when he was barely twenty years old. Three years later, he married Abigail Hopper, a daughter of Isaac T. Hopper, the Quaker philanthropist. Born" in Philadelphia, Pa., she had received a liberal edu- cation, and had taught, both in her native city, and in New York. In 1834, Mr. and Mrs. Gibbons settled in New York ; where he became associated with the banks and finance in that city ; and she at once began to be prominent in charitable work. In 1845, she WE ARE COMING 163 aided her father in organizing the Women's Prison Association, and the father and daughter cooperated in founding the Isaac T. Hopper Home for discharged prisoners. For twelve years she was president of a German industrial home for street children, Mr. Gibbons was the author of "The Banks of New York," and "The Public Debt of the United States." He was a pioneer in the movement for preserving the forests ; and, always a notable abo- litionist, for a short time he was one of the edi- tors of the "Anti-Slavery Standard." He and his family did not hesitate to put their creed into their deed. At the outbreak of the war, the good wife and mother, took her eldest daughter with her, and went directly to the front, where they worked in camp and in hospital, until the end of the conflict. In 1863, during the anti-war, or draft riots, in New York, their home was one of the first to be sacked by the mob. Mr. Gibbons and the two younger daughters were compelled to take refuge with relatives in the house next door but one, and from there, over the roofs to Eighth Avenue, where Mr. Joseph H. Choate had a carriage in waiting for them. Their house was particularly singled out for 1 64 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS this attention, because both husband and wife had been zealous in the cause of negro freedom, and because it had been illuminated, when the Emanci- pation Proclamation was issued. On that occasion it had been well daubed, and defiled with coal tar. This goes to show how lit- tle sympathy New York City had with the anti- slavery feeling. It is stated that in 1861, the mayor, Fernando Wood, had proposed to the Common Council, that should there be a separation of the states, the city should declare itself independent of them all. Neither side seems, at the outset, to have fore- seen the result of secession. The Northerners had heard the threat of separation so often, that they had at last come to look upon it as no more than an empty menace made to extort political concessions. The South, emboldened by Buchan- an's weakness, and trusting to their alliance with Northern Democrats, had already seized some forts and other United States property in the Southern states, before the retirement of our wavering fifteenth President. The campaign of i860 was the most confused in the whole history of American politics. Rumors of secession filled the air. The South was openly making preparations for war. Four WE ARE COMING 165 presidential candidates were in the field. And when Abrahain Lincoln was elected sixteenth president by a popular vote of 1,866,352, South Carolina promptly seceded; and thereby opened wide the flood-gates of disunion. Feeling ran so high that when Mr, Lincoln ar- rived at Washington, on the twenty-third of Feb- ruary, 1 86 1, he narrowly escaped a concerted plot for his assassination at Baltimore, by taking' an earlier train than that by which he was expected to arrive. At that time, he was somewhat of a stranger to the country at large. More especially was he unknown to the southern people, who re- garded him solely as an Abolitionist, then the vilest of mortals, in their estimation. But his inaugural address was couched in the most win- ning and conciliatory language. There was even affectionate pleading, in his concluding sentences : "I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though pas- sion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of mem- ory, stretching from every battlefield and pa- triot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union — when again touched — as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 1 66 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS It was still believed that the secession fever so bitterly excited in South Carolina, would not spread beyond the boundaries of that state. The people of the Northern free states went about their daily occupations assured that this episode would also pass away, as others had done, and they treated the idea of Civil War in this land of liberty, as a pure folly. Even when the Confederate Government seized Federal arsenals and forts within the territory of the seceding states, public opinion was still so di- vided in the North, that, generally speaking, the spirit of patriotism lay dormant. Nothing short of an actual blow would produce the vitalizing spark. That blow was the first cannon-ball fired against Fort Sumter, commanding the entrance to Charleston Harbor. That memorable first shot was fired from the Cummings Point battery, by an aged secessionist of the most rabid type, — Edmund Ruffin, — who had come all the way from Virginia, to beg the privilege. So vehement was he for the Confed- eracy, that, just before the end of the war, when the ruin of the Confederate cause became appa- rent, he committed suicide. However, on that historic Friday, April i2th, 1861, the answering shot was fired from Fort Sumter, by Captain, WE ARE COMING 167 afterward General Abner Doubleday, and Civil War was actually begun. When Monday dawned, April 1 5th, there rang out the voice of Abraham Lincoln, calling for 75,- 000 volunteers for three months. These were for the protection of Washington, and the property of the Government. All who were in arms against the nation were commanded to return home in twenty days, and Congress was sum- moned to meet on the Fourth of July. No stimulus was needed. The call of the gov- ernors of the loyal states met with so generous a response, that ten times 75,000 volunteers could have been furnished, had they been asked for. Recruiting offices were opened in every city, town and village. Everywhere the sound of the fife and drum thrilled the air with their vibrant ap- peal. The plow was left in the furrow, the car- penter turned from the bench ; the student closed his books, the lawyer forsook his clients ; and even the clergyman exchanged his pulpit for the life of camp and tented field. For well as the people of the United States loved their Government and their history, they had neither army nor yet navy adequate to meet so grave a crisis. Long before the outbreak of the war, the militia organizations in most of the Northern states had been practi- 1 68 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS cally abandoned, and the regular army could not be depended upon to suppress the Rebellion, as General Winfield Scott, then commander-in-chief, had supposed ; as many of its officers sympathized with the South ; and those who lived there, with a few notable exceptions, accepted commissions in the Confederate army. General Robert E. Lee at first refused to quit the service of the United States, in which he had discharged his duties with honor and credit; but he finally "went with his state," Virginia. An- other Virginian, "Stonewall Jackson," was a grad- uate of West Point, but developed into one of the most remarkable characters on the Confederate side of the Civil War; for he lived, prayed, dis- ciplined, and fought, with all the rigidity and strenuousness born of his Presbyterian creed, and his Scotch-Irish ancestors. With this swift melting of the regular army, arose a new and very grave problem; for it was found that there were not enough left of the com- missioned men loyal to the Federal Government, to officer the new regiments, and it was upon the volunteers that the administration was forced to rely, for the material with which to fill up the rank and file as well. The South was really better prepared than the WE ARE COMING 169 North. As stated before, in every state, particu- larly west of the AUeghanies, the militia had fallen into undisguised contempt. In conse- quence the old-fashioned militia musters had been entirely given up. It was very difficult to arm and equip the 75,- 000 three-months troops. An Indiana volun- teer remarks that there were not enough muskets in the whole of his state to arm a single regi- ment; to say nothing of uniforms, tents, knap- sacks and other necessary equipment; although the quota of the company was filled, almost as fast as the men could write their names. "We did not wait for uniforms, but were all rigged out in red shirts. The loyal ladies of the town pre- sented us with a beautiful silk banner, and we were ready to march. It was generally thought the flurry would soon blow over. And the Sec- retary of State, William H. Seward, in whose sa- gacity we had unbounded confidence, predicted that the war would end in sixty days." Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, laughed heartily at Sherman's idea that it would take two hundred thousand men to recover the Mississippi States alone. He said openly, that Sherman was crazy, and unfit for any military command. The first troops to arrive in Washington were I70 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS 530 Pennsylvanians, who were there on the 19th of April. They were mostly unarmed. They had left their homes in great haste, and their actual number was not large enough to make them very formidable under any circumstances. But their arrival was magnified in importance, and they were quartered in the House of Repre- sentatives. On May 3rd the President issued another proc- lamation calling for 42,000 three-year volun- teers. When the three months volunteers were discharged, many of the companies immediately reenlisted in a body for three years, sometimes under their old officers. These three-months men had gained a fair knowledge of the manual of arms, and of camping and regimental evolu- tions. And to those who became officers, the military experience, limited as it was, proved of great value in enabling them to drill and discipline the troops over whom they were placed in com- mand. The men of the North were eager to enlist, but they preferred to serve with their neighbors, and under officers whom they knew. The first seri- ous trouble arose in equipping them for active service. The disaster of Bull Run occurred on July 21st, WE ARE COMING 171 1861. Its effect was to throw the North into a panic. It meant that going to war was no longer like going to a picnic; but that a tremendous effort must be made by the North or the Union would be shattered forever. The nation and the individual had yet to learn the terrible truth contained in General Sherman's terse definition of war. During the summer and autumn of 1861, im- portant operations went forward in the west ; and much time was consumed in disciplining troops. The armies of the West, and the army of the Po- tomac, were as yet rather vast camps of instruc- tion than armies in the field. Mass meetings were held, all through the loyal states, to incite the raising of more troops for the cause, and the pledging of more funds for the outfitting and care of those who were to fight the battles of the Union. We are not especially a musical nation. But many inspiriting songs were written and sung, to "swell the chorus of the Union," and to express the patriotic determination of those who were still faithful to it. The Civil War was eminently a people's war; and in the camp, on the march, and at the public meetings at home, choirs improvised for the oc- 172 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS casion sang the "Red, White and Blue," and "Rally Round the Flag," until quite too hoarse for further endeavor. Even the hospitals were enlivened by patriotic songs, while war songs re- sounded in the streets of cities, towns and ham- lets. It was not the least of "Little Phil" Sheri- dan's cleverness, that his military bands were usually mounted on gray horses ; and instead of being relegated to the usual duty of carrying off the wounded, and assisting the surgeons, they were brought to the front, "and made to play the liveliest airs in their repertory," writes General Porter, "and with great effect on the spirits of the men." The year 1862 has been called the year of dis- couragement. And it was during those dark days, just after Lincoln had issued the proclama- tion asking for three hundred thousand volun- teers to fill up the stricken ranks of the army, and to carry out the insistent popular cry which urged it "On to Richmond," that Mr. Gibbons wrote "We are coming, Father Abraham, Three hundred thou- sand more." He was best known as a writer on financial topics, although like most of us, he had written some verse. At this time, he used to take long walks WE ARE COMING 173 alone, often talking aloud to himself. "I began to con over a song," he says, in the account of the circumstances under which he wrote the verses. "The words seemed to fall into ranks and files, and to come with a measured step. Di- rectly, there would come along a company of soldiers, with fife and drum, which helped the matter along amazingly. I began to keep step myself — three-hundred-thousand — more. It was very natural to answer the President's call— 'We are coming' — , and to prefix the term 'father.' Then the line would follow, " 'We are coming. Father Abraham,' and nothing was more natural than to add the number of soldiers wanted, " 'Three hundred thousand more.' again,— " 'We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thou- sand more.' Where from? Shore is the rhyme wanted." Just then Mr. Gibbons happened to meet "a Western regiment; it was from Minnesota, and the next line came at once in full. " 'From Mississippi's winding stream, And from New England's shore.' 174 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS Two lines in full. Then followed, how natur- ally! " 'We leave our plows and workshops, Our wives and children dear ; With hearts too full for utterance, With but a silent tear.' And so it went on, word by word, line by line, until the whole song was made." Only one slight verbal alteration was made, and then it was printed in the New York Evening Post of July 1 6th, 1862. As Mr. Gibbons's song appeared anonymously, its authorship was at once ascribed to William CuUen Bryant, who was then the editor of the Evening Post; and as the oldest of the greater American poets at the outbreak of the Civil War, he had been prominent for many years in the dis- cussion of anti-slavery. At a large meeting in Boston, held the evening after it had appeared, it was read by Josiah Quincy, as "the latest poem written by Mr. William C. Bryant." And as supposedly one of Mr. Bryant's productions, it was set to music by a member of the celebrated Hutchinson family, and sung by them with great effect. It was copied into many other publica- tions, both daily and weekly, and was set to music by several other composers, most of whom had WE ARE COMING 175 concluded that it was Bryant's until that gentle- man declared, over his own signature, that it was not from his pen, "but from that of James S. Gibbons, of this city." The song soon became a great favorite ; and an anecdote of Lincoln tells of his coming down to the Red Room of the White House, one morning in the summer of 1864, to listen with bowed head and pensive, patient eyes, while one of a party of visitors sang, "We are coming. Father Abraham, three hundred thou- sand more." For in spite of the great burden of responsibility placed upon him, no president was ever more ap- proachable than was Lincoln. Among her other good deeds, Mr. Gibbons's wife, after the war founded a labor and aid as- sociation for soldiers' widows and orphans. It has been justly said of this estimable Quaker lady, that her life was one of singular purity and exal- tation ; and that nearly all the prominent philan- thropies of New York bear the impress of her spirit and hand. Death did not separate the worthy husband and wife, by many months ; as he died in 1892 ; — she following him on January 13th, 1893. To- 176 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS gather they had formed such a patriotic house- hold, that we may well be equally proud of them both, as typifying the ideal American citizenhood. MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA H. C. Work. Bring the good old bugle, boys ! we'll sing another song — Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along — Sing it as we used to sing it, fifty thousand strong, While we were marching through Georgia. Hurrah! hurrah! we bring the jubilee! Hurrah ! hurrah ! the flag that makes you free ! So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea, While we were marching through Georgia. How the darkies shouted when they heard the joyful sound! How the turkeys gobbled which our commissary found! How the sweet potatoes even started from the ground. While we were marching through Georgia. Yes, and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears. When they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years ; Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers. While we were marching through Georgia. "Sherman's dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast!" So the saucy rebels said, and 'twas a handsome boast. Had they not forgot, alas, to reckon with the host. While we were marching through Georgia. So we made a thoroughfare for freedom and her train. Sixty miles in latitude — three hundred to the main ; Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain. While we were marching through Georgia. MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA Our "Marching Through Georgia," was sung by practically all the armies engaged in the great- est war of history. It has long been a favorite in the British Army ; as both officers and men delight in the martial strains that commemorate Sher- man's exploits. A London dispatch of September, 1914, men- tions among the striking incidents of that day, the passage of a Highland regiment through the Strand, to the music of "Marching Through Georgia." This lively tune puts quickness into the most laggard feet, and has been pronounced the most ringing and swinging of all the songs of the Civil War. The words have been censured as lacking dis- tinction and literary merit; but the same critic admits that they serve to carry the tune, and that the tune is well worth carrying; for this brisk air has a very captivating rhythm. Although it was looked upon as the most strik- ing episode of this war, — instead of being flat- tered, General Sherman himself seems to have 179 i8o OUR NATIONAL BALLADS resented the celebration of the March to the Sea, in song and story, on the ground that it directed attention from other, and what he considered, far greater strategic movements, and from successful fighting in the final epoch of the war. The story goes, that General Sherman was stopping for a time at a Washington hotel, when an intimate friend called to see him, one even- ing. During their conversation, a band came to serenade the General. He and his friend stepped out on the veranda, and the band struck up, "Marching Through Georgia." The friend turned to the grim old chieftain and asked, "General, confidentially, what is your private opinion of that piece of music?" The General looked quizzical for a moment, and then replied; "If I had thought, when I made that march, that it would have inspired any one to compose the piece, — I would have marched around the State." And yet, during those November and October days of '64, the camps in the open pine woods, the bonfires along the railways, the occasional sham battles at night, with blazing pine-knots for weapons whirling in the darkness, all these, — a participant insists, — combined to leave upon the minds of ofiicers and men the impression of a vast holiday frolic. MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA i8i In reunions of the veterans, since the war, this campaign has always seemed more of a romantic dream, than an actual fact. And no chorus rings out with quite so joyous a swell, as when they join in the refrain, "As we were marching through Georgia." Such a prime favorite has this war ballad be- come, especially with the old soldier, and the mili- tary band, that it is sometimes called "The Ameri- can Marseillaise." The tune is peculiarly fresh and spirited, so that it bids fair, together with "John Brown's Body" and "The Battle Cry of Freedom," to be the chief musical legacy of the war. While these two came at the beginning of the contest, and the Georgia song was not possible until near the end, yet the swinging rhythm of the tune, and the homely straightforwardness of the words, coupled with the circumstance of its commemorating perhaps the most striking epi- sode of the war, gave instant popularity to the song. It was written and composed, in 1865, by Henry Clay Work, a popular song writer, born in 1832, October ist, at Middletown, Conn., of Scottish origin. This man from the Nutmeg State was not yet thirty years of age when he 1 82 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS published this ballad. He was the author and composer of two other songs which rivalled it in popularity at the time ; "Drafted into the Army," and "Brave Boys Are They," the chorus of which was equally applicable in those troublous days, to the homes on either side of Mason and Dixon's line. "Brave boys are they, Gone at their country's call; And yet and yet, we cannot forget. That many brave boys must fall." Henry Work so resembled Stephen C, Foster, the composer of "Old Folks at Home" in his knack of reflecting the folk flavor of the plaintive negro rhythms, that some of his best songs seem, as one writer suggests, like actual echoes from the cotton field and levee. "Wake, Nicodemus," "Kingdom Coming," and "Babylon is Fallen," especially have this savor of the soil. It is a singular thing that this man, who seems to have had scarcely any musical education, should have written successful songs, even in his boyhood ; and he was probably the composer who won the most decided popularity with his later songs during the Civil War times. But Work was an earnest man, and it was only natural that he should be a strong partisan in politics, for his MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA 183 father had been a sufferer in the cause of Aboli- tion. When Henry was a child, the family had removed to Illinois, where he received but an irregular education, and had the bitter unhappi- ness of seeing his father imprisoned for his anti- slavery views, during that Western stay. When he was about thirteen years of age, he was taken back to Connecticut, and greatly to his delight, was apprenticed to a printer. The per- sistency inherited with his Scotch blood stood the lad in good stead. While working faithfully at the case, he somehow managed to find time for the self-taught study of harmony. His first song belongs to this period, and is said to have brought him $25.00. He often composed the words of a song at the "case" as he set up the type; and then, when he had access to music type, he would also compose, in his mind, and set up the music ; these pieces sel- dom requiring more than two or three alterations. "Marching Through Georgia" is probably unique among the war songs of the world, as being thus composed "free-hand," without appearing in manuscript. Among two or three hundred others, the most popular of Work's productions, for a brief period, were "Father, Dear Father, Come Home," "Loss i84 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS of the Lady Elgin," "Lily Dale," and "My Grand- father's Clock." This last is said to have brought him a handsome return. In 1865, he was able to go abroad; and upon his return, he invested his fortune, which was then considerable, in fruit-growing in Vineland, N. J. Unhappily, both financial and domestic misfortunes overtook him, and he returned to New York, where he was connected as composer, with Mr. Cady, of the former firm of Root and Cady, music publishers. This firm had held the copyrights of all his songs, but had lost them, to- gether with their other property, during the great fire in Chicago. Mr. Cady pluckily re-established business in New York, and in quick succession brought out the songs of Mr. Work, — which had large sales. Mr. Work died in 1884, at Hartford, Conn., at the age of 52, his ballads having proved a pleasure to many thousands. "Marching Through Georgia," followed, not many months after the most gloomy period in the North, of the entire Civil War; the year 1862, and the first half of the year 1863. "Have we a General Among Us ?" wailed an editorial of Harper's Weekly, on January 17th. And in those days, although there were fewer newspapers, they wielded a more powerful influence than at present. MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA 185 In the dismal months that followed the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation, enthusiasm for military service became less and less. In every quarter, the Union Cause seemed to be dragging. Every unsuccessful movement, and chiefly each defeat of the National forces in- creased the strength and audacity of the opposi- tion to the Government and the war. The Union arms had not given the satisfaction which the North had anticipated, and the failures were freely laid at Lincoln's door. When Lincoln named Grant as Lieutenant- General of the Federal armies, much satisfaction was expressed, for it was felt that at last the right man had been found to have supreme au- thority. He took command in March, 1864, with his headquarters in the field, which speaks vol- umes for both discipline and for gaining the men's confidence in a leader. General Sherman succeeded Grant in command of the Division of the Mississippi. But not imtil November of that year did he find opportunity to put in execution a plan which he had conceived and had been quietly pondering, for a long time. Stated briefly, it consisted of a rapid march to the sea, — the occupation of some harbor capable of becoming a fortified base, — and the opening of 1 86 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS lines of ocean communication with the great depots, — the storehouses, — of the North. He in- tended to abandon Atlanta, march eastward through central Georgia, seize Savannah, and establish a new base of supplies. Accordingly, he organized his forces in two subordinate armies ; the Right Wing, under Gen- eral Howard, retained its name, "The Army of the Tennessee." "The Left Wing," under Gen- eral Slocum, was afterward known as "The Army of Georgia." There was also a division of cav- alry, under General Kilpatrick. These combined forces numbered 55,329 infantry, 5,063 cavalry, and 1,812 artillery, — total 62,204, — officers and men. Twenty days' rations were in hand, and two hundred rounds of ammunition of all kinds were in the wagons. Droves of beef cattle, to furnish the meat ration, were ready to accompany the march. For the rest, as General Sherman's "Special Field Orders, No. 120" direct, "The army will forage liberally on the country during the march," which they did. A little further on, he continues, "Soldiers must not enter the dwell- ings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass" ; but this order was not always so faithfully ob- served, some contend., In the trains there were MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA 187 2,500 wagons and 600 ambulances, the wagon train of each corps being five miles long when on the road. The non-combatants, the sick and the feeble were sent to the rear; leaving none but able- bodied veterans at the front. On November 1 2th, the last railway train for the North left Atlanta, and the track was torn up for many miles as soon as it had passed, because the cutting off, the practical separation of the Gulf States from the Carolinas, and from railroad communi- cation with the Confederate Army at Richmond could only be accomplished by a great and thor- ough demolition of railway lines in Georgia. This had been a very important part of Sher- man's scheme. He gave it his own personal at- tention, and spared no pains to do it thoroughly. He speaks with considerable pride of the simple but effective way in which even the materials were rendered unfit for further use. The rails were piled upon the fires made of cross-ties, and in half an hour they would be red-hot in the middle. Seizing one by the two ends, the soldiers would either twist it about a tree, or else interlace and twine the whole pile together, in great iron knots, making them useless for anything but old iron, and most unmanageable as well as trouble- some, even to convey away to a mill. i88 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS The great march began on November fifteenth, when the army cut loose from the outer world, and swung boldly toward the sea, the troops mov- ing ofif at "route step," with guns at right shift. Few outside of general headquarters knew their destination, the rank and file giving the question but little thought. On the march, the chief delight of the soldiers was the ample and varied supply of food brought in by the foragers. They consisted of a picked force from each regiment, under an officer care- fully selected for the command. For the greater part of the way, the route lay through a good farming region, and the men lived upon sweet potatoes, hams, fresh pork and mutton, with chickens and turkeys in abundance. So that the words of the song are not at all imaginative, on that score. At evening and at daybreak, the air about the camp-fires was redolent with savory smells, "And each soldier boy," observes a par- taker, "shouldered his musket in the morning, or lay down at night, with a satisfied, comfortable feeling, that he had seldom experienced on a march before." Contrary to the wish of Sherman, the negroes, eager to enjoy their new found freedom, and ex- ercise its rights, flocked to the columns until they MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA 189 became a serious embarrassment, as their pres- ence daily added to the number to be fed. Old and young men, women and children, they came from every crossroad and plantation on the route ; until their numbers reached into thousands. Nearly every officer retained one as servant, and each mess of enlisted men took one along as cook. Many of the able-bodied blacks were employed as teamsters, while large parties of them were util- ized in laying corduroy roads through the mud and swampy places. The aged negroes, together with the women and children, could not keep up, yet about seven thousand still accompanied Slo- cum's army when it finally reached Savannah. But the Federal troops could not at once enter the city, which was then a place of about twenty- five thousand inhabitants, owing to swamps and obstructed roads and the Confederate General Hardee's force. It was the tenth of December, 1864, when the National Army closed in on the works around Sa- vannah. Food was getting low, as Hardee's troops had nearly exhausted the country, which was now mainly under water. At Purisburg, the pickets were all afloat in boats and scows, and on rafts. One officer tells of the crest-fallen for- agers who could bring in nothing but rice, which 190 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS became distinctly unpalatable when served three times a day, for successive weeks. From the time when Sherman's army com- menced its march from "Atlanta to the Sea," on the morning of November 15th, until it arrived in front of the defenses of Savannah, on the tenth of December, there had been perfect isola- tion; owing to the destruction of the railway, and telegraph lines. During this interval, no news had been received from the North, except such as could be gleaned from Southern papers picked up by soldiers on the line of their march. The Union fleet was in Ossabaw Sound, with supplies of food and much needed clothing, and an immense mail, containing letters from home for nearly every one in the army, "from the com- manding general down to the private soldier," writes General Slocum. "But communication with that fleet was blocked, until Fort McAllis- ter, on the Ogeechee River, was captured by Hazen's division of the Fifteenth Corps ; that was on December 13th; and the fifteenth brought us our mails, and an abundant supply of food and ammunition; making this one of the happiest days experienced by the men of Sherman's army," Not until the 21st of December, did Hardee MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA 191 formally surrender, after destroying the navy yard, and a great store of ammunition. Sherman's dispatch to Lincoln reached him on Christmas Eve, and read as follows, — "I beg to present to you as a Christmas gift, the city of Sa- vannah, with one hundred and fifty guns, and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton." When Savannah was reached, the great num- bers of colored refugees with all the columns had been placed on the Sea Islands under the care of government officers. About one month was spent in clothing the soldiers, and in filling the trains with ammunition and rations. So it was late in January, 1865, before Sherman's army, singing "John Brown's Body," crossed the Sa- vannah, and entered South Carolina. There was more fighting during the movement through the Carolinas, than on the March to the Sea. In the Battle of Bentonville, N. C, alone, on March 19th, 1865, the Federal loss was esti- mated at 1646. "But," a survivor tells us, "as the sun broke through the smoke of the Battle of Bentonville, and bathed our flag in a flood of glory, — from our triumphant lines the old Union cheer burst from the lips of veterans, who in grim silence had fought like heroes, and splen- 192 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS didly won the last battle of Sherman's Army." "From Bentonville (March 22n(i), we marched to Goldsboro where we arrived, ragged, and al- most barefooted," writes a Massachusetts volun- teer. Sherman was now in communication with Grant, who was but one hundred and fifty miles away; and the first work demanding his attention was to supply his men with clothing and shoes. They had made the march from Savannah, a dis- tance of 430 miles in seven weeks, in the winter season, through mud and water, and in spite of every other known obstacle. Among the pleasant reminiscences of the time is an incident related, — after twenty-two years, by one of Uncle Sam's former young naval offi- cers. It is a story of Union War Songs, and Confederate Officers; and his own words cannot be improved upon. "A day or two after General Lee's surrender in April, 1865, I left our ship at 'Dutch Gap' in the James River, for a run up to Richmond, where I was joined by the ship's surgeon, the paymaster, and one of the junior officers. Dinner being over, the doctor, who was a fine player, opened the piano saying, 'Boys, we've got our old quar- tette here, let's have a sing.' As the house op- MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA 193 posite was occupied by paroled Confederate offi- cers, no patriotic songs were sung. Soon the lady of the house handed me this note, 'Compli- ments of General and Staff. Will the gen- tlemen kindly allow us to come over and hear them sing?' Of course we consented, and pres- ently they came. In the general, I instantly recognized the face and figure of one who stood second only to Lee or Jackson, in the whole Con- federacy. Introductions, and the usual inter- change of civilities over, we sang glees and col- lege songs for them, until at last the general said, 'Excuse me, gentlemen, you sing delightfully, but what we want to hear, is your army songs.' "Then we gave them the army songs with unc- tion; — the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic,' 'John Brown's Body,' 'We're Coming, Father Abra- ham,' 'Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching,' — through the whole catalogue, up to the 'Star Spangled Banner,' to which many a foot beat time, as if it had never stepped to any but the 'Music of the Union'; — and we closed our concert with, 'Rally Round the Flag, Boys.' "When the applause had subsided, a tall, fine looking fellow in a major's uniform exclaimed, 'Gentlemen, if we'd had your songs, we'd have licked you out of your boots ! Who couldn't have 194 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS marched or fought with such songs as these?' Then, turning to the general, he said, 'I shall never forget the first time I heard, "Rally Round the Flag." 'Twas a nasty night during the "Seven Days' Fight," and if I remember rightly, it was raining. I was on picket, when just be- fore "taps," some fellow on the other side struck up that song, and still others joined in the chorus, until it seemed to me the whole Yankee army was singing. Tom B , who was with me, sang out, "Good heavens, Cap., what are those fellows made of, anyway? Here we've licked 'em six days running, and now, on the eve of the seventh, — they're singing 'Rally Round the Flag.' " " 'I am not naturally superstitious, but I tell you that song sounded to me like the "knell of doom" and my heart went right down into my boots. And though I've tried to do my duty — it has been an up-hill fight with me — ever since that night.' "The little company of Union singers and Con- federate auditors, after a pleasant and interesting interchange of stories of army experiences, then separated; and as the General shook hands, at parting, he said to me, 'Well, the time may come, when we can all sing the "Star-Sp3.ngled Banner" again.' And we of a second generation, have witnessed this patriotic wish come true." MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA 195 Also, on May 17th, 1918, Memorial ceremonies for the Confederate dead were held at historic old St. John's Church, at Hampton. Honoring the memory of Confederate veterans gone to rest, were men in faded blue uniforms, as well as men in equally faded gray; — ^while below them, in their trim khaki, stood the firing squad from Langley Field. These were the men of that new army in whose ranks were the sons of both North and South. And it is related that "at the end of the program their voices joined in 'America,' that great, common medium for the blue, the gray, and the khaki." OCCASIONAL SONGS WE'RE TENTING TO-NIGHT Walter Kittredge. We're tenting to-night on the old camp ground, give us a song to cheer Our weary hearts, a song of home, and friends we love so dear. We've been tenting to-night on the old camp ground, thinking of days gone by, Of the loved ones at home that gave us the hand, and the tear that said "good-bye I" We are tired of war on the old camp ground, many are dead and gone, Of the brave and true who've left their homes, others been wounded long. We've been fighting to-day on the old camp ground, many are lying near; Some are dead and some are dying, many are in tears. CHORUS Many are the hearts that are weary to-night, wishing for the war to cease; Many are the hearts looking for the right, to see the dawn of peace. Tenting to-night, tenting to-night, tenting on the old camp ground. Chorus for laA verse: Dying to-night, dying to-night, dying on the old camp ground. OCCASIONAL SONGS It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of copies have been sold of "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground." An inspired song, we may call it; for both words and music were both written in a few moments, by Walter Kittredge, while preparing to go to the front, when he was drafted, in 1862. A New Hampshire boy, born at Merrimac, Hillsboro County, October 8th, 1834, he showed a strong love of music, at an early age. But his father was a farmer; and as Walter was the tenth one of the eleven children, it is not difficult to understand why the child never had a music teacher ; for he had made the fatal mistake of not "marrying rich parents" as a little girl neighbor puts it. However, music, like murder, "will out." His- tory does not relate where the lad managed to pick up his knowledge of singing; but he gradu- ated from the Merrimac Institute, at seventeen, in 1851. The very next year, 1852, the plucky youngster began to give ballad concerts, by him- self. 199 200 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS Four years later, in 1856, he gave concerts in company with Josiah Hutchinson, of the well- known Hutchinson family of singers. After that he began to be mentioned as a prolific song composer, writing not only the words, but also the music, of many lyrics; besides this, he was giving concerts, in which he sang his own songs, as well as that of other composers. In 1 86 1 (he was then twenty-seven) he mar- ried Annie E. Fairfield, of New Boston, N. H, In that first year of the Civil War, he published a small, original, "Union Song Book." He was drafted in 1862, and it was then that the song "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground" came to him, as if by magic. Yet at first, he was not able to find a publisher for it. Nevertheless, he made it so popular by his own singing of it, that, in a short time, a publisher employed some one else to write a song with a similar title. For- tunately, Oliver Ditson & Company soon after- ward brought out the original. Of his many other songs, special mention is made of "No Night," "Golden Streets," "Scatter the Flowers Over the Gray and the Blue," "Sing the Old War Songs Again." But none of the others have sur- vived the changing years, like "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground" has done. OCCASIONAL SONGS 201 The love of the soil must have lived on, in the heart of the one-time country lad; for as late as 1903, we hear of Mr. Kittredge being engaged in farming, at Reed's Ferry, N. H. In 1905, he died; after rounding out his three score years and ten, with an additional year as recompense for giving us a sincere, sympathetic ballad, which custom does not stale. For it is as touching today, as when it was written, in 1862. Mr. George Root had the distinction of having written not one song, but three, which have had universal appeal. And while the greatest of these is undoubtedly his "Battle Cry of Free- dom," their trainers notice that the old songs seem to be coming more and more into favor with our troops, and the boys have a special fondness for "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" ; though they often substitute other words. Of late, colored troops have taken America's folk songs with them, to Europe. According to the war correspondents, the negro barracks at night, were resonant with music. Nothing seems to mar the eternal non-worrying attitude of the colored man. It matters not whether he is in the overalls of the stevedore, or the olive drab of the fighter, the American negro sings just as he does 202 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS in the cotton fields of the sunny Southland. Other survivors of the fighting say that the negro troops did their share, along with the white and the red warriors, to keep America unchained. And that the terrors of shrapnel, gas, and high explosives, — the grim life of the trench, were made bearable by the unfailing good nature of the negro soldiers. It seems, that when permis- sible, they organized their quartets, and sang plantation melodies. One of their number, a wounded negro from South Carolina, has since told the story of how a quartet harmonized on "Massa's in de Cold, Cold Ground," and when the singing was over, they said in unison, "And we all's gwine be with him to-night." For they were awaiting orders to go over the top at the time. Our boys in khaki are not embarrassed with the inborn British reticence as to showing their emotions. The spirit of song which is being so carefully fostered in our armies has a tendency to consolidate their ranks by creating a desire to sing on all possible occasions ; and to pour forth in song even the deepest emotions that are implanted within their natures. Mr. Root's verses voice the lament of the cap- tive soldier who sits helpless, in his "prison cell," OCCASIONAL SONGS 203 and hears in imagination, the measured tread of his marching comrades. The simple pathos of this ballad solaced thousands of Union men in the Southern prison-pens. A current writer points out that the history of the four years of the Civil War, with its high hopes, its bitter disappointments, and its renewed determination can be distinctly traced in the varying themes of its songs. Before we came by such desperately earnest ballads as "Rally Round the Flag, Boys !" the struggle had grown to be a deadly earnest one. And the great losses of the North were necessary to bring into being, such a song as "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp." Across the water, this tune is almost better known as "God Save Ireland" ; and its great pop- ularity should alone authorize the composer to rank among the makers of vital national music. The third song of Mr. Root's trio, "Just Before the Battle, Mother," is one of those unaffected, pathetic melodies which exert a tremendous influ- ence by suggesting thoughts of Home, to the heavy hearts of weary men who have girded on the sword, and shouldered the musket, at their country's call. Among the purely sentimental songs of the Civil War, "The Years Creep Slowly by. 204 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS Lorena," had wonderful vogue, although it had been written some years before the conflict began. There were many other old favorites. "Annie Laurie" will always be popular; and "The Girl I Left Behind Me." "Massa's in the Cold, Cold Ground" divides the honors, with "The Old Folks at Home," THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR SONGS WHEN JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME Louis Lambert. When Johnny comes marching home again, Hurrah, hurrah! We'll give him a hearty welcome then, Hurrah, hurrah! The men will cheer, the boys will shout, The ladies, they will all turn out. And we'll all feel gay, when Johnny comes marching home. The old church bell will peal with joy, Hurrah, hurrah! To welcome home our darling boy. Hurrah, hurrah! The village lads and lassies say. With roses they will strew the way. And we'll all feel gay, when Johnny comes marching home. Get ready for the Jubilee, Hurrah, hurrah! We'll give the hero three times three; Hurrah, hurrah! The laurel wreath is ready now To place upon his loyal brow; And we'll all feel gay, wlien Johnny comes marching home. THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR SONGS This vital difference is dwelt upon, by one who was familiar with them all; the songs of the Spanish- American War were so much more dole- ful than are those of today; one of the prime favorites being, "Good-bye, Dolly Gray," with the sorrowful chorus, "Good-bye, Dolly, I must leave you, Tho' it breaks my heart to go ; Something tells me I am needed. At the front, to fight the foe. See the soldier boys are marching, And I can no longer stay. Hark ! I hear the bugle calling. Good-bye, Dolly Gray." There was also a very harrowing one, known as "Just Break the News to Mother"; and while every one sang that piteous song, my informant recalls that when the boys of the first draft were going out, through the Grand Central Station, and one of them started this particular ballad, it proved too much for the nerves of the rest of the youngsters. The others had been singing al- most everything they knew, but instantly balked 207 2o8 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS at this number on their programme, and shouted him down, in a moment. Special mention is made of that other melancholy ditty of the period, "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away." The refrain of this song possessed the doubtful charm of being "able to be pulled out into a vast, engulf- ing howl." This probably added to the fascina- tion, in some unaccountable way. "Oh, the moonlight's fair tonight along the Wabash, From the fields there comes the breath of new-mown hay. Thro' the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming, On the banks of the Wabash, far away." "A Hot Time in the Old Town, To-night," by Joe Haydon, seems to have possessed the distinc- tion of being the one really gay song of the time. The witchery of this tune was such, that during our brief war with Spain, the Spaniards in Cuba were quite convinced that our National Anthem was named "There'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night." At all events, the frolicsome tones of this unpretentious popular song are the most intimately associated of any, with the al- ready dimming recollections of that "whirlwind campaign." Some time ago, the statement occurred in one of our newspapers, that during the Battle of San SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR SONGS 209 Juan Hill, the American soldiers fought their way to victory on the tune "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night." But as Colonel Roosevelt said he never heard the men sing in battle, although they often sang in camp, this little incident appears to be entirely fictitious. Yet the catchy, don't-care tune carried an irresistible attraction for our fighting lads Of 1898. The title of this melody, and that of the "Star- Spangled Banner" were a source of never-ending astonishment to the newspapers of France and Germany, which were none too cordial, at the time. A recent magazine writer describes with glee "the sedate gravity with which a leading Pa- risian journal announced the entry of the Ameri- can troops, into Manila, after the surrender of the Filipino capitol, and mentions the regimental bands as playing the two national hymns of the United States, *La banniere remplie d'etoiles' and 'II fera chaud dans la vieille ville ce soir.' " The discomforts of that Spanish- American War may have helped to confirm Major-General Leonard Wood in his opinion, that it is as essen- tial for a soldier to know how to sing, as that he should carry a rifle and know how to use it. For the cheery sprightliness of the favorite "welcoming back" song of those days, we are in- 210 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS debted to Pat Gilmore; although, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" was a revival, from Civil War times ; and was published, by Mr. Gil- more, under the pseudonym of Louis Lambert. Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore is noted as the con- ductor of the two monstrous music festivals, called the Peace Jubilees, held in Boston, in 1869 and 1872; and he is listed as a celebrated Ameri- can bandmaster. But he was born in Ireland, near Dublin, on Christmas Day of 1829. His first musical experience was with the town band of Athlone. But at eighteen years of age, he left his native place, to go to Canada, with an English band. However, he did not stay in Canada ; for he crossed the boundary into the United States, almost immediately after his arrival on this side of the water, and settled in Salem, Mass., which, — after Plymouth, — is the oldest town of New England. Here, the young man became con- ductor of a military band. When the Civil War broke out, he went fre- quently, with his band, to Fort Warren, one of the defenses of Boston; and he is said to have been greatly interested in harmonizing, for his band, the melody of "John Brown's Body," the words of which were composed there, among the soldiers who were busy repairing the old fort. SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR SONGS 211 While Mr. Gilmore was connected with mili- tary music, both before and after the great Jubi- lees, it was those two festivals, held on Boston Common, which gained an international reputa- tion for him. In 1869, the orchestra consisted of a thousand pieces, and the chorus of ten thousand voices; which number was doubled, in 1872. Quite an advance upon the town band of Athlone ! Settling in New York, in 1874, Mr. Gilmore and his band began a series of concert tours which were as popular, as they were successful. The tours covered Canada, Great Britain, and several European cities of importance. He was the predecessor, in this branch of musical organi- zation, of Lieutenant John Philip Sousa, who has played "The Star Spangled Banner" around the world. Mr. Gilmore died at St. Louis, Mo., Septem- ber 24, 1892; but a striking incident in connec- tion with his Civil War song is related by Mr, Edward Marshall, who graphically depicts the landing, at Montauk Point, Long Island, of six troops of the famous Rough Riders, with their gallant Colonel ; together with four troops of the Third Cavalry, with General Joseph Wheeler, and his son, Lieutenant Joseph Wheeler, Jr. On August 7th, the troops had marched from 212 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS El Caney to Santiago; where they boarded the transport Miami, and returned to the United States. It was ahout noon of August 15, 1898, when they landed at Montauk Point, and went into the detention camp. Mr. Marshall tells of the wild cheers from their waiting comrades, on shore, which marked the approach of the Miami toward the dock. "The visiting, gull-like yachts drew in more closely. The hustling little launches sputtered nearer than they had been permitted to go be- fore. A band struck up 'When Johnny Comes Marching Home.' The cheering became more general as the cables from the great steamer were made fast to the stanchions on the pier; and when the gangplank was finally put down, — everyone was cheering." SONGS OF THE GREAT WAR BRITISH SONGS OF THE GREAT WAR BRITISH Each one of the Allies had its own favorite songs, which the soldiers sang, as they trudged along the wearisome way of War. In the early days of the mighty conflict, when the English troops marched through London, to the front, they sang a version of an American Civil War Song. "We are coining, Marshall Kitchener, Five hundred thousand strong." But once landed on foreign shores, these troops changed their tune for the song "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary" ; and marched to their heroes' graves, to the notes of that singular new battle ode. Other British soldiers followed them, and went intrepidly, to face terrific odds, to the tones of the same careless refrain. Still later on, in one of the battles of the western front we hear of the loyal sons of Erin gleefully sing- ing, "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary," as they drove the Huns before them. 215 2i6 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS What was there, either in the verses, or in the tune, of "Tipperary," to justify its sudden vogue in this greatest of wars ? For more than a year, it was sung, played, and whistled all over the world. Never intended for a war song, it had been sung casually, in music halls and elsewhere, for quite twelve months before the outbreak of hostilities. Many have wished it could have been Elgar's "Land of Hope and Glory" that stimu- lated the forces. But not Tommy Atkins. "Tipperary" was his song; and that settled the matter. Possibly the real reason it became the idolized, and universally sung and whistled tune of Tommy, may be sought in the fact that the British reserve so far exceeds that of our own, and that of the French, when it comes to expressing patri- otic feeling, in any form whatever, that the Eng- lishman has a haunting dread of showing his deeper emotions; and he keeps all such things closely hidden; with the result that the songs he sings on the battle-field are seemingly light- hearted and superficial in meaning. We are told, his inferior taste in music really disgusted the foe, — at the beginning of the fray. Written so recently, it is strange there should be any question as to its authorship. Some of SONGS OF THE GREAT WAR 217 the standard magazines go as far as to claim the song was made in U. S. A., written about 191 1, at a house in Douglas Manor, L. I., finished early in 1912. This account asserts it was orig- inally intended for a little vaudeville skit, com- posed by Harry Williams. Another account, which appears more credible, is to the effect that the song was written in 191 1, by Jack Judge, a singer of the English music halls, and of pure Irish blood. This narrative mentions a friend, Mr. Harry Williams, who assisted him; but in- sists the words and music are virtually Mr. Judge's own. The composer carried his manu- script from one publisher to another; but it met with unbroken rejection, until, in 1912, it came into the hands of the London house of B. Feld- man & Co. Mr. Bert Feldman took a fancy to the piece, and was willing to publish it, provided Mr. Judge agreed to certain minor changes. One alteration he suggested was the repetition of the word "long," and another hint, was the length- ening of the third syllable of the word Tipperary, both of them toward the end of the chorus. Mr, Judge agreed to the changes, and the song was published as it had been written, — with never an idea of its becoming, two years later, the favorite marching song of soldiers in a great war, and 2i8 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS widely known, wherever English is said or sung. At first Mr. Judge was bitterly disappointed with the scanty sale of his work; whereas Mr. Feldman never lost confidence in its ultimate suc- cess. And, as the story goes, one day when Mr. Judge was regretting the chilly reception it had received at Edinburgh, the publisher said to him, "Take my word for it, not only Edinburgh, but all the world will one day ring with your song." The words have absolutely nothing to do with war; they merely reflect a frolicsome, heedless jollity, tinged with a certain naive wistfulness, as an Irishman in London rather plaintively voices the longing for his beloved Tipperary, and for "the sweetest girl" he knows. Of the millions who sing the chorus, only a small proportion have anything but the vaguest idea of the words, and their associated tune. One is tempted to second the writer who says of it, "The charm lies in the irresistible, flowing momentum of the refrain. It is all so singable; the rhythm of its phrases not ending before it leaves off ; and its range only slightly more than an octave." "It's a long way to Tipperary, It's a long way to go. It's a long way to Tipperary, To the sweetest girl I know. O Underwood & Underwood INFANTRY BAND PLAYING AT HEADQUARTERS SONGS OF THE GREAT WAR 219 "Good-by, PiccadHly, ■ Farewell, Leicester Square, It's a long, long way to Tipperary, But my heart's right there." A war correspondent when leaving London, sends this word: "The last sound which caught my ear, as the boat-train pulled out of Euston, was not the sobbing of women who bade sorrow- ful good-byes, but a soldier-voice, high pitched, and maybe a little off the key, but valiantly sing- ing, " 'There's a silver lining, Through the dark cloud shining; Turn the dark cloud inside out. Till the boys come home.' " Many felt that "Tipperary" was too flippant a song for soldiers to sing, when they were on the eve of battle, and probable sudden death; and these find a welcome substitute in its rival, "Till the Boys Come Home," with its touching chorus of "Keep the home fires burning." This war song of England's was written in ten minutes. The composer says so; and he adds, that he wrote it at the request of his mother, "to take the place," as she urged, "of this Tipperary tune, which has become so tiresome through months of iteration." The song has been described as a compact ballad, 220 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS which swings along in easy march time, through a short verse, to a catchy chorus, which is simple enough to be easily memorized, a chorus whose hymn-like chords disclose the early training of the composer, who was first solo boy in Magdalen College, Oxford, for five years, having won a scholarship there at the age of nine. Nature was prodigal of her gifts to this won- der-child, who has been singing publicly, since he was six years old. He inherits his remarkable talent largely from his mother, Clara Novello Davies, daughter of Vincent Novello, composer, organist, and pianist. Ivor Novello's own account of the writing of his best-known lyric would indicate that it was the result either of inspiration, or of unconscious cerebration, — perchance a little of both. The sentence, "Keep the home fires burning," had run through the composer's brain for some months, in a tantalizing way. And when he set about writing the patriotic song for his mother, he fashioned a tune to fit this line. Having com- pleted the melody, he called up Mrs. Lena Guil- bert Ford, on the telephone, told her his plan, and she is said to have built the rest of the words around the music, and that first line, in another ten minutes ; the entire construction of this rapid- SONGS OF THE GREAT WAR 221 fire song having consumed less than half an hour's time all told; with the happy result of an appealing combination of melody, sentiment, and admonishment to the home-folks in England, to show a patriotic spirit of endurance, in the ab- sence of their loved ones. Strange as it seems, several publishers refused the song. But luckily the youthful composer neither lost faith in it, nor changed it. Finally it was accepted, and published about November, 191 5. Since then, it has been sung in every camp in the war zone, published in six languages, and has gone with the soldiers into the trenches, much as "Tipperary" did ; but it possessed the merit of lacking flippancy. As a child, Ivor Novello's greatest ambition had been to write songs that the street organs would play; and few of us live to see our ideals so speedily or so abundantly realized. Not long after his song was placed on sale, he went to the trenches with a concert-giving party, where the ballad was sung over four hundred times in twenty-five days. As it was so delightfully simple, the boys learned it at once. On his return trip from the front, three thou- sand soldiers passed him on their way to the trenches, and the scenes he had just quitted. 222 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS Fresh from London, they were trudging bravely along, singing his song, as they marched. It is not likely that the memory of the spectacle will ever fade from the mind of the composer; for events proved that at least two-thirds of those lads would never see their home fires again. In 1 91 6, when Ivor Novello was twenty years of age, he wrote from London, that he had just been made a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Service. Incidentally, he was giving three con- certs a month, in halls and hospitals; also writ- ing musical comedies for the Gaiety Theatre. His fellow worker in preparing the now famous song did not fare so happily as he. Mrs. Ford, unfortunately, was killed, in 191 8, during one of those cruel air-raids on London. We might perhaps call the song rather an interna- tional product; as this lady was an American, who formerly lived in Elmira, New York. "Keep the home fires burning. While your hearts are yearning. Though your lads are far away, They dream of home. There's a silver lining, Through the dark cloud shining, Turn the dark cloud inside out, Till the boys come home." SONGS OF THE GREAT WAR AMERICAN SONGS OF THE GREAT WAR AMERICAN Returning from the front in 1918, one of our well-known jurists pictured the American sol- diers as always singing, and marching along as if they were going to a picnic. There was such a curious discrepancy between what our fighting men were most intent upon accomplishing, and what they really enjoyed singing about. For, owing to a singular twist of human nature, the very solemnity of the times has rendered the non- sense song triumphant, and given rise to a very puzzled "Why?" Many have essayed to solve the riddle ; but so far, the most, rational answer points out that Civilization, through centuries of evolution, has done away with the blood-lust of the savage early centuries; and has rendered the mere idea of killing so abhorrent to the normal, wholesome men who risk their lives, for the sake of all those things Civilization implies, that they are only too glad to divert their minds from their grim task, 22s 226 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS whenever opportunity permits. As a soldier with the American Army in France confesses, "A song to sing is a great thing. It boosts the spirit and the morale, and helps a man forget the things he doesn't like. The fellows in the army who can't sing, always whistle." In line with this, comes the statement that "Grin and Bear It," with the accent on the "grin," has been one of the first commandments of the American soldier in France. This must be the underlying reason for the many nonsense songs, or as they have been more aptly christened, "songs of soldier philosophy." On the border line, comes the famous "Smile" song, by George Asaf . Anything but nonsense, it is yet the quintessence of our soldier logic. "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, And smile, smile, smile; While there's a lucifer to light your fag, Smile boys, that's the style ! What's the use of worrying, it never was Worth while ! So — Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, And smile, smile, smile!" And as Chaplain Thomas Tiplady assures us, in "The Soul of the Soldier," "All along the western front, be their days ever so clouded, they SONGS OF THE GREAT WAR 227 sing, — our boys, and their French and British and Canuck and Anzac brothers; as long as they breathe, they smile, and laugh, and sing." Chief among the true nonsense songs comes the dearly loved stammering song, "K-K-K-Katy" by Geoffrey O'Hara, and also its parody, voicing the lament of the downcast K. P. (Kitchen Police). "K-K-K-Katy, beautiful Katy. You're the only g-g-g-girl that I adore, When the m-m-m-moon shines over the cow shed, I'll be waiting at the k-k-k-kitchen door." Substitute, — "When the m-m-m-moon shines, over the mess hall, I'll be mopping up the k-k-k-kitchen floor." Mr. O'Hara was one of the musical experts who were sent out by the United States Govern- ment, to record and to present the fast-vanishing music of various Indian tribes. During the war, he was one of those army song leaders to whom so much credit is due. As a specimen of their work, the composer of "K-K-K-Katy" went to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and accomplished mar- vels, in that huge mobilization camp. In the be- ginning, it is said that he did not even have a platform to stand upon. Being resourceful, it did not take him long to discover a lumber pile; 228 OUR NATIONAL" BALLADS and he used that, as a dais, until the carpenters took it away. He could be a boy, among the boys ; always ready with a joke, and always bring- ing music up at precisely the right moment. He contends that every company is full of talent, of every kind, if one knows how to dig it out. Later on, the War Department Commission on Training Camp Activities placed Mr. O'Hara at the embarkation port of Newport News, as song leader of the various camps of the district, which included Camp Stuart, Camp Hill, Camp Mor- rison, the aviators at Langley Field, the colored men of the big stevedore camp, and the artillery school at Fortress Monroe, besides going out oc- casionally to teach a group of new songs to the men stationed aboard the big ships of the Atlantic fleet. In fact, he became practically the "song leader of Tidewater Virginia." Soulful persons have rather regretted that some of our most popular songs have been writ- ten by comedians ; but "Dixie" was another case in point; and today, it is almost as great a favorite in the North, as it is in the South, The soldiers have obstinately refused to sing the stock martial tunes set down for them, and have adopted the racy music hall songs, probably be- cause they so often say a pointed thing in a quick SONGS OF THE GREAT WAR 229 way. This accounts in a measure, for the won- derful vogue of such songs as "Over There," "Good-bye, Broadway," and Irving Berlin's, "I Hate to Get Up." Some years ago, it was predicted that should our soldiers ever be engaged in war again, they would probably adopt a prevailing tune of the day, as they formerly seized upon "A Hot Time in the Old Town To-night," and as the English took "Tipperary," Sure enough, when those 8,000 American lads were advancing to the front, at Chateau Thierry, the first intimation that the French soldiers had of their approach, was in hearing them cheerily singing "The Yanks are coming, . . . and we're not coming back, till it's over, over here." And when the Marines led, on that crucial July day, at Chateau Thierry, they leaped forward toward the enemy lines, shouting at the top of their lungs, "Hail! Hail! The Gang's All Here!" Of those 8,000 Yankee boys, 6,200 were either killed or wounded. But thanks to the gallant work of the Marine Brigade, and the no less efficient valor of our Regulars, the Hun was whipped that day. Although Brigadier General Catlin, who led the Sixth Regiment of Marines, as Colonel, says, "It was a terrible slaughter; the mere thought of 230 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS such wholesale killing is enough to curdle Christian blood." Narrowly as he escaped bleeding to death, after being shot down by a German sniper, General Catlin continued to di- rect a large part of the engagement, from the bottom of the trench where he was lying. It was the singing army that was victorious on this frightful day, when the other brave Allies, spent with four long years of warfare were al- most afraid to sing, for fear the great cause of Humanity was lost. And because it struck a national note, "Over There" has been called the great song of the great war. The sentiment "We'll be over, we're coming over, and we won't come back, till it's over, over there," together with the swift action indicated, and the blithe, yet menacing melody, put the entire situation in a nutshell, from the American point of view. Mr. George M. Cohan, born on the Fourth of July, 1878, at Providence, R. I., is the real live nephew of his Uncle Sam, depicted in one of his earlier songs, "The Yankee Doodle Boy." Al- though a comparatively young man, — as song- writer, actor, manager, and playwright, he is con- sidered, in many respects, the foremost figure of the American Theater. His methods seem to be as unique as his success. One of those persons SONGS OF THE GREAT WAR 231 with a morbid appetite for analysis, says that George Cohan took parts of "Jo^^^^y S^^ your Gun," and a bugle call; and after blending them with a few other strains called the collection "Over There." Well, "the collection" struck a wonderfully responsive chord in the hearts of the American People. OVER THERE "Johnny, get your gun, get your gun, get your gun. Take it on the run, on the run, on the run. Hear them calling you and me, every son of Liberty, Hurry right away, no delay, go to-day. Make your daddy glad to have had such a lad. Tell your sweetheart not to pine, To be proud her boy's in line. Chorus. "Over there, over there. Send the word, seiid the word, over there, That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming, The drums rum-tumming everywhere. So prepare, say a prayer. Send the word, send the word, to beware. We'll be over, we're coming over. And we won't come back till it's over, over there." The soldiers across the water, sang Zo Elliott's "There's a Long, Long Trail," on many of their marches. It was written shortly before the war, for a fraternity banquet, while Mr. Elliott was 232 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS still a senior at Yale College. Like "Tipperary," it was never meant for a war song, but the tune became immensely popular with our soldiers, — who substituted the following lines, instead of the original text, and added the vociferous "WOW !" at the end. (Tune) There's a Long, Long Trail. "There's a long, long trail that's winding Into No-Man's Land in France, Where shrapnel shells are bursting, And where we must advance. There'll be lots of drills and hiking. Before our dreams come true. But some day we'll show the Kaiser, What machine-gun boys can do. WOW!" The commanding officer at one of our western camps is quoted as saying that it is better, for a long hike, to have the men singing, than to rely upon a band, to help the sore feet and heavy pack. For the modern soldier is in reality more bur- dened by his equipment than the mail-clad knight of yore. Most of us have the impression that the knight carried an enormous weight ; yet this does not seem to be borne out by the actual facts. For the heaviest suit of armor in the tower of London is said to weigh but 66 pounds, whereas the Brit- ish soldier of today carries from 75 to 90 pounds. SONGS OF THE GREAT WAR 233 Furthermore, the present cavalry horses, while less sturdy than the old battle steeds, carry even more weight than the chargers whose riders wore armor. A Canadian soldier, invalided home, throws light on another side of present-day war music. He claims that, with all due respect to the pipes, the drum, and the fife, — the official music-makers, — nothing can rival the humble gramophone, the louder the better, that uplifts its intrepid voice, in a dug-out under fire; for it has proved such a wondrous source of comfort to the soldier-boys, and has played its own pipculiar part in helping to win the war. He says that many and many a company headquarters, lit by a couple of candles glaring in bottle-necks — sub-let to countless rats, and in ever-present danger of flooding — was yet cheered and brightened by the ever-obliging music-box. Music has proved of inestimable value, among the men at the front. As pictured by a recent writer, "Music, when men are going into a charge, uplifts the heart, and makes it strong. Music, in the intervals between actions, back of the trenches, and in the billets, uplifts the soul of the soldier, acts as a palliative of hardships, and com- forts like a mother." 234 OUR NATIONAL BALLADS There is not the slightest doubt that Music, more than any one of us realize, can help to ma- terialize that earnest, all-inclusive prayer of Oliver Wendell Holmes : "One flag, — one land. One heart, — one hand. One Nation, Evermore." THE end: