Laura Galt and "Marching through Georgia"

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Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Honored Fallen Comrade
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
Location
Laurinburg NC
10444538_1485263381710103_3742064809029500735_n.jpg


"A strange report comes from a public school in Louisville.
It is that "Marching through Georgia" is sung in school
there. A special in the Atlanta Constitution states that Laura
Talbot Galt, aged thirteen, a pupil, refused to sing "March
ing through Georgia," as her teacher Miss Sue Allen, in
structed. Miss Galt has been withdrawn and complaint made
to the superintendent. She not only refused to sing "Marching
through Georgia," but she put her fingers in her ears
when the school was singing the song, and was reprimanded.
Mrs. Laura Talbot Ross, the
grandmother of little Miss Galt,
is a Daughter of the American
Revolution amd a Daughter of the
Confederacy. She instructed her
grandchild to obey her teacher,
but to protest against singing
that song.
The little girl says that Miss
Allen her teacher, refused to
listen to her essays in which she
gave the Confederates credit for bravery
on land and sea."

Letters poured in from every state thanking the child
for standing up for the truth and for her parents removing
her from such a bad school.
Miss Laura then said,

"As for putting my fingers in my ears I did that because I
would not listen to a song that declares such a tyrant and
coward as Sherman and his disgraceful and horrible march
through Georgia and the Carolinas to be glorious. I did not
think, at the time, the teacher would think it very bad. I felt
that forcing Southern girls who were in the room to
or listen to such a song was an insult that I could not stand."
CONFEDERATE VETERAN
Volume X No 7
1902
 
"Marching Through Georgia"

Bring the good ol' bugle boys! We'll sing another song,
Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along,
Sing it like we used to sing it 50,000 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 darkeys 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 make 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 of latitude, three hundred to the main;
Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain
While we were marching through Georgia.
 
I'm going to leave the treasonus family of little Laura out of this. Just as an added historical note tho, when our Mom took us to see "Shane" when opened in 1953 when ex-Confederate Frank "Stonewall" Torrey (Elisha Cook, Jr.) picks a fight with the harmonica player, we both asked why? My mom says "because he's playing Marching thru Georgia.
 
View attachment 39597

"A strange report comes from a public school in Louisville.
It is that "Marching through Georgia" is sung in school
there. A special in the Atlanta Constitution states that Laura
Talbot Galt, aged thirteen, a pupil, refused to sing "March
ing through Georgia," as her teacher Miss Sue Allen, in
structed. Miss Galt has been withdrawn and complaint made
to the superintendent. She not only refused to sing "Marching
through Georgia," but she put her fingers in her ears
when the school was singing the song, and was reprimanded.
Mrs. Laura Talbot Ross, the
grandmother of little Miss Galt,
is a Daughter of the American
Revolution amd a Daughter of the
Confederacy. She instructed her
grandchild to obey her teacher,
but to protest against singing
that song.
The little girl says that Miss
Allen her teacher, refused to
listen to her essays in which she
gave the Confederates credit for bravery
on land and sea."

Letters poured in from every state thanking the child
for standing up for the truth and for her parents removing
her from such a bad school.
Miss Laura then said,

"As for putting my fingers in my ears I did that because I
would not listen to a song that declares such a tyrant and
coward as Sherman and his disgraceful and horrible march
through Georgia and the Carolinas to be glorious. I did not
think, at the time, the teacher would think it very bad. I felt
that forcing Southern girls who were in the room to
or listen to such a song was an insult that I could not stand."
CONFEDERATE VETERAN
Volume X No 7
1902
I find it surprising that a teacher in the South would have her students sing the song in the first place.
 
I can understand why in the South it probably wasn't at the top of the charts but it is a pretty good song. Reading on my grgr uncle's regimental GAR Reunion in 1897 the article reported how the vets all sung with much cheer "Marching Through Georgia."
 
In Dixie's Daughters, Karen Cox's book on the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Laura Galt story is discussed as a successful publicity opportunity by the UDC. This political group had a particular focus on the indoctrination of young white boys and girls into the Lost Cause ideology:

"Through their involvement with the region's white children, the Daughters believed they could help shape the New South guided by the principles of the Old. It was a campaign of indoctrination with serious consequences for the region. There was nothing innocuous about imparting the Lost Cause narrative to a younger generation, as that narrative was replete with racial stereotypes, emphasized the inferiority of blacks, and exaggerated the benevolence of slave ownership."
 
To understand the UDC's politics in promoting the Lost Cause ideology in the early 20th Century, you may want to consider its election as the Daughters' historian of a KKK apologist a decade after the Galt incident.

Laura Rose Martin was elected historian of the UDC in 1916, succeeding the famous Mildred Lewis Rutherford. In 1913 the UDC had endorsed Rose's primer for schoolchildren, The Ku Klux Klan or Invisible Empire and asked its division presidents to promote its use in schools. It was adopted as a supplementary text in Mississippi. [Cox p. 109-110] Here is an add for the UDC endorsed primer:
ku klux klan.PNG
 
I find it surprising that a teacher in the South would have her students sing the song in the first place.

Given Louisville location on the Ohio River, a Northern teacher wouldn’t have had to travel far. I doubt though that so an insensitive teacher with such an attitude would have had a happy stay in Kentucky at the beginning of the twentieth century.
 
Given Louisville location on the Ohio River, a Northern teacher wouldn’t have had to travel far. I doubt though that so an insensitive teacher with such an attitude would have had a happy stay in Kentucky at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Why "insensitive"? If only one kid objected, maybe most kids liked it. Does the fact that only one child was offended mean that it should not have been sung?
 
Why "insensitive"? If only one kid objected, maybe most kids liked it. Does the fact that only one child was offended mean that it should not have been sung?

I doubt Laura Galt would have become “a regional heroine” had she been the only one offended.
 
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