Civil War America

The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War

Christian McWhirter

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780807882627
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

Music was everywhere during the Civil War. Tunes could be heard ringing out from parlor pianos, thundering at political rallies, and setting the rhythms of military and domestic life. With literacy still limited, music was an important vehicle for communicating ideas about the war, and it had a lasting impact in the decades that followed. Drawing on an array of published and archival sources, Christian McWhirter analyzes the myriad ways music influenced popular culture in the years surrounding the war and discusses its deep resonance for both whites and blacks, South and North. Though published songs of the time have long been catalogued and appreciated, McWhirter is the first to explore what Americans actually said and did with these pieces. By gauging the popularity of the most prominent songs and examining how Americans used them, McWhirter returns music to its central place in American life during the nation's greatest crisis. The result is a portrait of a war fought to music.

CHAPTER 1
PART OF EVERYONE’S MEAT AND DRINK

POPULAR MUSIC AND THE CIVIL WAR

As you’ve walked through the town on a fine summer’s day,
The subject I’ve got, you have seen, I dare say;
Upon fences and railings, where ever you go,
You’ll see the penny ballads sticking up, in a row;
The titles to read you may stand for awhile,
And some are so odd, they will cause you to smile;
I noted them down as I read them along,
And I’ve put them together to make up my song.
Chorus
Old songs! New songs! Every kind of song.
I noted them down as I read them along.

There was “Abraham’s Daughter” “Going out upon a spree,”
With “Old Uncle Snow” “In the Cottage by the sea;”
“If your foot is pretty, show it” “At Lanigan’s Ball;”
And “Why did she leave him” “On the raging Canawl?”
There was “Bonnie Annie” with “A jockey hat and feather;”
“I don’t think much of you” “We were boys and girls together;”
“Do they think of me at home?” “I’ll be free and easy still”
“Give us now a good commander” with “The Sword of Bunker Hill.”
Chorus

“When this Cruel war is over,” “No Irish need apply;”
“For, every little thing is lovely, and the Goose hangs high;”
“The Young Gal from New-Jersey,” “Oh! wilt thou be my bride?”
And “Oft in the Still Night” “We’ll all take a ride.”
“Let me kiss him for his Mother,” “He’s a Gay Young Gambolier;”
“I’m going to fight mit Sigel” and “De bully Lager-bier.”
“Hunkey Boy is Yankee Doodle” “When the cannons loudly roar;”
“We are coming, Father Abraham, six hundred thousand more!”
Chorus

“In the days when I was hard up” with “My Mary Ann;”
“My Johnny was a shoemaker,” “Or Any other Man!”

“The Captain with his whiskers,” and “Annie of the Vale,”
Along with “Old Bob Ridley” “A riding on a Rail!”
“Rock me to sleep, Mother,” “Going round the Horn;”
“I’m not myself at all,” “I’m a Bachelor forlorn.”
“Mother, is the Battle over?” “What are the men about?”
“How are you, Horace Greeley” “Does your Mother know you’re out?”
Chorus

“We won’t go home till morning,” with “The Bold Privateer”
“Annie Lisle” and “Zouave Johnny” “Riding in a Rail road Kerr.”
“We are coming, Sister Mary,” with “The Folks that put on airs!”
“We are marching along” with “The Four-and-Thirty Stars.”
“On the other side of Jordan” “Don’t fly your kite too high!”
“Jenny’s coming o’er the Green,” to “Root Hog or die!”
“Our Union’s Starry Banner,” “The Flag of Washington,”
Shall float victorious over the land from Maine to Oregon!
Chorus

—STEPHEN C. FOSTER, “The Song of All Songs,” 1863

On January 17, 1862, the Hutchinson family performed for a large crowd of Union soldiers at Fairfax Courthouse, Virginia. The concert was originally intended for the First New Jersey Regiment, but members of other outfits squeezed into the local seminary to see the show. The Hutchinsons had been performing since the 1840s and often used their music to promote evangelical reform movements, such as temperance, women’s rights, and abolitionism. As they entered the camps of the Army of the Potomac, John W. Hutchinson and his family were similarly motivated. By singing to the soldiers, they hoped not only to deter them from sinful behavior but also to influence their political ideology. The ensuing performance and the controversy it created dramatically demonstrated the power of music during the Civil War.¹

John recalled that the beginning of the concert “went off splendidly,” and the crowd was “enthusiastic and largely sympathetic.” The family’s political activism became apparent during its musical rendition of John Greenleaf Whittier’s abolitionist poem, “We Wait beneath the Furnace Blast.” Members of the crowd turned on the singers during the following two verses:

What gives the wheat-field blades of steel?
What points the rebel cannon?
What sets the roaring rabble’s heel
On the old star-spangled pennon?
What breaks the oath
Of the men o’ the South?
What whets the knife
For the Union’s life?—
Hark to the answer: SLAVERY!

Then waste no blows on lesser foes
In strife unworthy freemen.
God lifts to-day the veil and shows
The features of the demon!
O North and South,
Its victims both,
Can ye not cry,
“Let slavery die!”
And union find in freedom?²

Whittier had written these lines in response to Army of the Potomac commander George B. McClellan’s conciliatory policies toward the Confederates—especially his refusal to interfere with slavery. The Hutchinsons understood the significance of expressing such sentiments in this setting. “Of course, we were aware that the army of the Union did not entirely consist of Abolitionists,” John later recalled; they “had yet to learn … that the backbone of secession must be broken by the system it was inaugurated to sustain.” He added, “It might have saved us trouble to omit [the song], but it was not a characteristic of the Hutchinsons to forbear when a message was put to their lips.”³

Thus, it probably did not surprise the family when a clearly audible hiss emerged from the crowd at the end of the piece. The primary culprit was Second New Jersey surgeon Lewis W. Oakley, who later reported that he had expected “national and patriotic airs” but instead heard the sounds of abolitionist “fanatics.” In response to the hissing, Major David Hatfield rose from his seat and threatened to eject anyone who further disturbed the performance. Outraged, Oakley shouted back, that Hatfield “may as well begin with me.” The major stood his ground and swore that if he could not remove Oakley, he had a regiment that would. At that point, several members of the crowd stood in support of the family, many shouting “Put him out!” In order to assert some control over the situation, Lieutenant Colonel Robert McAllister ordered everyone to sit down. The Hutchinsons then eased the tension by singing, “No Tear in Heaven” while the chaplain-at-large, James B. Merwin, helped pacify the crowd.⁴

The entire division continued to discuss the Hutchinsons’ performance well into the night. General William Birney narrowly escaped fighting a duel because he had sided with the singers and later visited them with a group of soldiers to show his support. Oakley took matters into his own hands by meeting with the commander of the brigade, General Philip Kearny. The general responded by placing both Oakley and Hatfield under arrest and ordered Chaplain Robert B. Yard, who had brought the Hutchinsons into the army, to meet with him the next morning.⁵

Kearny sided with Oakley and punished Yard by taking his keys to the local church. The general then requested a second meeting, but this time the Hutchinsons were asked to attend. He informed them that a program should have been submitted before the performance and forbade the family from holding further concerts. John pleaded that he had been given a pass by Secretary of War Simon Cameron and added that, however the officers felt about the performance, most of the soldiers enjoyed it. His patience taxed, Kearny proclaimed, “I reign supreme here,—you are abolitionists,—I think as much of a rebel as I do of an abolitionist” and dismissed them. Shortly, the Hutchinsons received official notification from Kearny forbidding them to perform for the army.⁶

That same day, the divisional commander, General William B. Franklin, ordered Hatfield to have the Hutchinsons transcribe all of their lyrics for him. When Yard arrived at Franklin’s office with the transcriptions, he was asked to indicate the objectionable song. Yard showed him the words to “We Wait beneath the Furnace Blast,” and Franklin declared, “I pronounce them incendiary. … If these people are allowed to go on, they will demoralize the army.” After consulting with McClellan, Franklin endorsed Kearny’s order forbidding the Hutchinsons from performing and revoked their pass. He ordered them to leave the camp as soon as possible, but they received permission to stay one more day because of bad weather “if they behave themselves properly.”⁷

They did not. Instead, the Hutchinsons secretly gave two other performances during religious services the next day—finally leaving Fairfax Courthouse on January 19. John rushed back to Washington and met with Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, a longtime friend and family supporter. Chase had John transcribe the lyrics of “We Wait beneath the Furnace Blast,” and the secretary read them at a cabinet meeting later that day. In response, the cabinet unanimously endorsed Cameron’s pass, and Chase informed John that President Abraham Lincoln “expressed himself very warmly in his favor.”⁸

This encouragement from the president and cabinet helped publicize the Fairfax incident. In effect, it transformed the Hutchinson family into the standard-bearers of abolitionism and opposition to McClellan. As John recalled, the “expulsion caused a great commotion among the people of the North. All the Washington correspondents referred to it [and] a great deal of good resulted from the discussions which it provoked.” His daughter Viola added, “After it became noised about that we had been expelled from the camps … we were simply idolized, and so much adoration was expressed towards us that it was embarrassing.” She further reflected that many of the family’s admirers “seemed to look upon us as martyrs to the cause of freedom.”⁹

In subsequent performances, soldiers and civilians applauded or requested “We Wait beneath the Furnace Blast,” and the family was happy to oblige. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison noted that, while the Hutchinsons were singing the song at a Washington concert in February, “a few hisses were heard from some one … but in an instant such an overwhelming outburst of applause arose as to completely drown all manners of disapprobation.” For Garrison, such behavior demonstrated nothing less than “the conflict in this city between freedom and slavery.” Increasing demand for “We Wait beneath the Furnace Blast” led to its publication as sheet music. The effect of the incident was so great that one Union soldier later argued—with obvious exaggeration—that the Hutchinsons’ expulsion from the army began the public discussion over whether or not emancipation would be one of the North’s war aims.¹⁰

McClellan’s treatment of the Hutchinson family and disregard for Cameron’s authority also raised doubts about the general. A congressional committee had already been formed in December to investigate McClellan, and John Hutchinson believed the Fairfax incident marked “the beginning of the end for that officer.” Indiana congressman and committee member George Washington Julian agreed, recalling that McClellan’s “order expelling the Hutchinson Family from the army … was conclusive evidence against him.” In February, Frederick Douglass’s periodical cited the incident as evidence of McClellan’s favoritism toward the Confederates. The next month, another abolitionist paper, the National Principia, speculated that McClellan’s actions exposed a government conspiracy to protect slaveholders. Later, Whittier joked about the incident’s effect on McClellan’s reputation. “Whatever General McClellan may do with my rhymes,” he told the Hutchinsons, “I am thankful that Congress is putting it out of his power to ‘send back’ fugitive slaves as well as singers.” After McClellan’s failed Peninsula campaign, one congressman quipped that, although McClellan could drive the Hutchinsons out of Virginia, he could not drive out the Confederates.¹¹

If there had been any doubt about the power of music before the Hutchinsons’ performance at Fairfax Courthouse, by the time it was finished everyone in the chain of command—from the soldiers in the audience to Lincoln in the White House—appreciated its potential. This was a remarkable achievement. The Liberator suggested that an abolitionist giving a speech to the same men would have been “rejected and mobbed” but the same opinions, “when warbled in the songs of the Hutchinsons, melts down old prejudices, finds its way to the heart, and corrects the head.” Indeed, two months after the Fairfax incident, an abolitionist minister visited the division and gave a speech expressing ideas that McAllister deemed “more objectionable” than anything suggested by the Hutchinsons. Even Oakley attended the lecture and sat through it without protest. From this, McAllister concluded, “There is no disguising the fact that our army is becoming more and more opposed to slavery every day … rank proslavery men who came here are now the other way.” Private Edward Livingston Welling underwent such a transformation after hearing the Hutchinsons’ performance. The “thrilling and grand old times” he experienced not only convinced him that slavery was wrong but made him into a committed abolitionist. With a single song, the Hutchinsons won a kind of ideological victory that had eluded newspapers and orators for decades.¹²

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Music was one of the most effective ways of expressing opinions and emotions during the Civil War. Setting a message to music made it more memorable and often more convincing. This was especially so during the 1860s because, even for Americans who were illiterate or barely literate, hearing or memorizing a song was much easier than reading a newspaper or understanding an eloquent speech. Music was available to all classes, both social and professional, and each American’s ability to use it was limited only by his or her imagination and skill. One northern music critic argued that all other forms of artistic expression “require a certain cultivation of the mind, which comparatively few possess,” but music, “How different! All are influenced by it—the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the educated and the uneducated.” John W. Hutchinson’s brother Joshua expressed the same sentiment more succinctly: “Ah! The ‘inspiration of song!’ It is Liberty’s great auxiliary.”¹³

Music made potentially controversial ideas not only more acceptable to listeners but also easier for performers to express. A contemporary northern critic observed how “men will sing what they would be shamefaced to say,” and a postwar southern music collector recalled, “It is a well-known fact that during the War many people spoke and sang more bravely than they fought.” Civil War–era Americans often preferred music to other forms of expression because it was not overt enough to invite punishment but was effective enough to convey its message to sympathetic and oppositional listeners. For instance, civilians under Union occupation publicly sang Confederate songs to show their defiance to northern soldiers and their patriotism to other southerners. Black soldiers used music in a similar fashion, conveying their intelligence and masculinity to northerners while demonstrating their newfound freedom to southerners.¹⁴

Music had been widely used as a cultural tool before the war, but the arrival of armed conflict gave it a more prominent role. With ideology dominating the rhetoric of northerners and southerners, music became a powerful way to express one’s views and influence others. Furthermore, the heightened emotional climate of the war created a need for songs that helped Americans understand their personal relationships with the conflict and express their reactions to it—both euphoric and depressing. In a more practical sense, the war increased the amount of group singing. Choral singing was already popular in the antebellum period, and now it could help bring people together in war rallies, the home, or large armies.¹⁵

Outdoor public meetings, common during the war, were one of the primary ways that civilians were exposed to new music. Although speeches by local politicians were usually the centerpieces, rallies almost always featured stirring music for which many Americans had a seemingly insatiable appetite. As one Chicagoan recalled, “There was in the war time an outburst of patriotic song on the slightest provocation, shared in by everybody, an...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• BATTLE HYMNS
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• ILLUSTRATIONS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 1 PART OF EVERYONE’S MEAT AND DRINK
• CHAPTER 2 JOHN BROWNS AND BATTLE CRIES
• CHAPTER 3 GAY DECEIBERS AND BONNIE BLUE FLAGS
• CHAPTER 4 WORDS WERE AS WEAPONS
• CHAPTER 5 A WONDERFUL AND INSPIRING INFLUENCE
• CHAPTER 6 THE CHOKED VOICE OF A RACE, AT LAST UNLOOSED
• CHAPTER 7 FRESH STRAINS FOR FRESH DEVELOPMENTS
• CHAPTER 8 VETERANS, MEMORIALISTS, AND THE KING
• CONCLUSION THE SINGING ELEMENT
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX