I have seen I don’t know how many photos & drawings of self-liberated banjo players. It is an African instrument that was ubiquitous throughout the South. The Gore Center at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro TN has a collection of thousands of CW era sheet music.
A drum, fife, jaw harp, fiddle & some sort of banjo were typical plantation instruments. I can’t play a note myself, but am fascinated by live music. A group of musicians here in Murfreesboro perform CW period music. They have done extensive investigations of parlor & camp music. Once you start looking, you will find both performances & scholarship online. The Carolina Chocolate Drops music is a pretty good idea of what string bands would have sounded like.
If you want a simple way to survey what soldiers carried, look at the ads in news papers. The CW era Nashville Daily Union Banner is available online from the Library of Congress. Not only does it have ads for instruments, it lists concerts & other entertainments. For example, a large Circus performed three times a day during Hood’s “siege” of Nashville.
it won’t do to leave out the regimental bands. Some of them were made up of professional musicians. The band of the 9th Michigan was especially good. One local Murfreesboro belle, Martha Ready Morgan’s sister Alice attested to that. She reluctantly listened to a serenade on the Murfreesboro square & grudgingly admitted that it was the best band she ever heard. When Forrest captured the 9th in July 1862, his cavalry had no use for the band instruments.
His men had carted off everything that was not nailed down. After a 50 mile match to McMinnville TN, he allowed the band to keep their new German silver instruments in exchange for a concert. Curiously, depending on which side he was on, soldiers who heard the concert wrote that the band played patriotic music from their side. Patriotic ladies who served biscuits during the concert secretly flashed Union colors.
After they were exchanged, the 9th’s band played a regularly scheduled series of concerts in Nashville during the Christmas season. After the Battle of Stones River, the band played as the 9th marched through the square & retook their old campsite in front of Oakland’s plantation. Once again, the old growth trees along the Maney family’s carriage lane & the eternal spring echoed with the sound of regular band music.
Along with sound of their band, who would play at the drop of a hat, the self-liberating people who flocked to Murfreesboro played music & sang. My house was moved onto the 9th’s campsite after the war. When I read about the music that was performed in the 9th’s camp while sitting on the screen porch, I can at least hear the wind in the trees, the birds & the night chorus they would have heard.
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