----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick G Wamsley" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 11:18 PM
Subject: Re: Civil War questions


> *** see below ***
>
> On Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:27:20 -0400 Diana Bennett <[log in to unmask]>
> writes:
>
> > 2. Songs: It is said that the North and South used each other's
> melodies but changed the words. Any examples?
>
> *** Here's a description from "Songs of the Civil War" by Charles Hamm,
> Recorded Anthology of American Music, Inc., (C) 1976 ***

I would guess that those songs where they did NOT change the words, they
shared.  LORENA is a great example.  DIXIE is an interesting one, in that
there was a pre-election ditty about Abraham Lincoln to the tune.  And that
may explain why he asked that it be played the evening of Appomatox.  Also,
Grant when visiting Staunton some years later, asked the town band, by then
THE STONEWALL BRIGADE BAND, to play it.  They did, and to this day open each
concert with it -- probably the only performance of that old minstrel tune
heard in the politically correct South this day and age.

Blind Tom's "Battle of Manassas" wove various tunes into a musical
description of the first battle.  As the union army comes on the field, the
theme is "Dixie", and as the Confederates arrive, it is "Le Marseillaise."

>
> Fraternization of soldiers between battles was a curious phenomenon of
> this bloody war that extended to music.  In 1863, Lt. W.J. Kinchelos of
> the 49th Virginia regiment wrote to his father of one such episode: "We
> are on one side of the Rappahannock, the enemy on the other . . . Our
> boys will sing a Southern song, the Yankees will reply by singing the
> same tune to Yankee words."

Singing has always 'crossed the lines.'  Yankee Doodle was one of the first
documented.  It grew from the British taking jibes at the ungainly American
Militiamen in the French and Indian War, and indeed lengend is it was played
by the British fifers and Drummers as they struggled back from Lexington and
Concord.  By the end of the war it was 100% American.  Another legend is
that as Cornwallis' troops passed through the ranks of French and American
troops at Yorktown, they refused to do an "eyes right" to look at the
Americans, instead doing an "eyes left" to look at the French.  At which
point the French band (probably the Royal duPont regimental band) struck
up...... you guessed it.....  YANKEE DOODLE.

Most of the famous songs of the Revolutionary War -- CHESTER excepted --
were based on British tunes.  The very first 'patriotic' song was 'The
Liberty Song', to the tune of 'Hearts of Oak.'  The most lasting started as
"God Save the King", which transmorgrified into "God Save the Thirteen
States", and in the next century into "America."

Back in WWII, recordings of Bing Crosby's WHITE CHRISTMAS were played on the
front lines Christmas of 1944, and he picked up the sobrique "Der Bingle",
from the Germans.  LILY MARLENE was another shared, and MADEMOSILLE FROM
ARMENTIERS in WWI.  I don't know the historical accuracy of it, but I find
it interesting that the only English spoken in the movie DAS BOOT was when
the crew of the German UBoat sang ITS A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY.
>
> *** Hamm's article doesn't describe which songs might have been sung.
> Here's an example I found of rival USA and CSA lyrics, set to the same
> tune, an old Irish melody also known as "The Crimson Flag of Derry." ***
>
> CSA: "The Bonnie Blue Flag"
>
> We are a band of brothers and native to the soil
> Fighting for the property we earned by honest toil,
> But when our rights were threatened the cry rose near and far:
> Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star
> Hurrah!  Hurrah!  For Southern rights Hurrah!
> Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star
>
> USA: "The Irish Volunteer"
>
> Now when the traitors of the South commenced their warlike raid
> I quickly lay down my hod, to the devil went me spade!
> And to a recruitin' office I went, that happened to be near,
> and joined the good old sixty-ninth like an Irish volunteer.
> Then fill the ranks, and march away, no traitors do we fear.
> We'll drive them all to blazes says the Irish volunteer . . .
>
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