Civil War Songs

[Coyote Creek]

I am wondering how the songs were written. Did musicians write them or did soldiers? Were they know by civilians because of sheet music or by hearing the soldiers singing?

 

[Seduzal]

If you go to the Search on the Blue bar top of this page and tap on the Search tab enter 'Song of the Civil War' hit search and you will see about 10 pages!

 

[Coyote Creek]

Thank you i am still learning how to work everything

 

[Lampasas Bill]

Some songs were written by soldiers to be sung in camp and on the march. They were often parodies of published songs and hymns or based on the tunes of published songs. They could become popular in the soldier-songwriter's company, then spread to his regiment and often became the regiment's marching song. You occasionally come across these songs in soldiers' memoirs. Here's an example:

Mary's Little Lamb (to the tune of The Battle Cry of Freedom)

Mary had a little lamb, it was always on the go;
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
So she staked it to a grassy spot along the Shenando';
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

Chorus:
Hurrah for Mary! Hurrah for the Lamb!
Hurrah for the soldiers who did not care a ****!
And we'll rally 'round the flag, boys; rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

So Mary left her little lamb along the banks to play;
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
The soldiers eyed it from banks in a kleptomanic way;
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

Chorus:

And Mary never more did see her darling little lamb;
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
For the Boys in Blue they chawed it up and did not care a ****;
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

Chorus:

I'm sorry I can't quote a source for this, but it's been too many years since I came across it.

 

[Coyote Creek]

Thanks I always wondered how all those songs came about. I know they didn't have song producers like we do now. I am thinking that after the war they were wrote down by someone.

 

[Lampasas Bill]

The vast majority of the "Civil War songs" we know today were not written by the soldiers, but by professional song writers and were published as sheet music during the war. They definitely were popular with the soldiers, as well as with the folks back home. Music was a big business in those days, and there may well have been "song producers" then as now.

 

[Michael W.]

Shenandoah.

 

[Quiet1]

I agree with Lampasas Bill.
Music was big business, both on the writing and performing ends.
The sheet music industry really seems to have taken off about this time, so many of what we think of as "American folk songs" are not what I would quite call folk music -- instead of coming from oral/aural tradition and being transcribed much later, they were written down by their composers and sold commercially before being learned "by ear" and passed around that way.
Basically, they were pop music.

Other "American" songs were actually "immigrants" -- stolen from the Brits, or whoever brought them across the pond ("Soldier's Joy" is one of these, I think; "Barbara Allen" for sure is).

Both professional and amateur poets wrote new lyrics to existing songs and published them as sheet music. This is a verrrrrry old tradition, and would have happened with secular, religious and patriotic songs.
Lots of great pieces resulted, as well as numerous forgettable ones.
"Richmond is a Hard Road" was originally a minstrel show song called "Jordan is a Hard Road". "John Brown's Body" became "Battle Hymn of the Republic." "Rosin the Beau" became.... oh gosh. Too many sets of lyrics to name -- and even more have probably been forgotten.

Songwriters (amateur as well as professional, I'm sure) also tweaked patriotic songs so as not to offend their side, or to one-up the enemy. This is why many Civil War songs have a Northern and a Southern version ("Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" comes to mind; I believe the Southern version was made during the war, though I may be wrong).

Wherever the tunes originally came from, though, normal people (and soldiers, by extension) had no qualms about messing with the lyrics, altering tunes, and creating parodies. In that respect, soldiers definitely made their own songs, but those versions may not have survived. The parodies may never have become popular enough to be remembered; they may have made it into the mainstream but were never PRINTED and thus were lost; they may also have been...not appropriate.... for either, and were gracefully forgotten by their creators.
For instance, in my (severely limited) reading, I have come across several instances of soldiers singing/making new words to "The Man who has Plenty of Good Peanuts", which is so delightfully immature and easy that it invites parody. Thomas Colley recalls using it to trash-talk a farmer who wouldn't extend hospitality toward himself and his fellow cavalrymen: "The man who has plenty of good buttermilk, and giveth his neighbor none..." or something along those lines.

I also found several song books full of patriotic Civil War tunes that I have never heard of becase, though they were published, they either didn't become popular enough at the time to be remembered, or were passed over by modern recording artists. (This is a golden opportunity for anyone on here who plays an instrument better than I do...)

Long story short: although soldiers probably made up their own songs, most of the Civil War songs we have now exist because they were written down and printed, most likely by (semi) professional composers. Looking up authors' names might give a clue, but I imagine that the writers who could afford to put in the money and effort to get a song published were probably not in the rank and file.
If anyone has a song that was written by a soldier, I'd like to hear it!

 

[limberbox]

Among my favorite parodies are "For Bales", sung to the tune "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" and lampooning Banks, cotton speculators and the whole Red River campaign, and the version of "Yellow Rose of Texas" sung by soldiers in the Army of Tennessee after Hood's disastrous Nashville campaign, ending as best as I recall:

"Well my feet are torn and bloody
and my heart is full of woe;
I'm going back to Georgia
to find my Uncle Joe.
You can talk about your Beauregard
and sing of Bobby Lee,
but the Gallant Hood of Texas,
played hell in Tennessee."

 

[Claude Bauer]

I agree with Lampasas Bill.
Music was big business, both on the writing and performing ends.
The sheet music industry really seems to have taken off about this time, so many of what we think of as "American folk songs" are not what I would quite call folk music -- instead of coming from oral/aural tradition and being transcribed much later, they were written down by their composers and sold commercially before being learned "by ear" and passed around that way.
Basically, they were pop music.

Other "American" songs were actually "immigrants" -- stolen from the Brits, or whoever brought them across the pond ("Soldier's Joy" is one of these, I think; "Barbara Allen" for sure is).

Both professional and amateur poets wrote new lyrics to existing songs and published them as sheet music. This is a verrrrrry old tradition, and would have happened with secular, religious and patriotic songs.
Lots of great pieces resulted, as well as numerous forgettable ones.
"Richmond is a Hard Road" was originally a minstrel show song called "Jordan is a Hard Road". "John Brown's Body" became "Battle Hymn of the Republic." "Rosin the Beau" became.... oh gosh. Too many sets of lyrics to name -- and even more have probably been forgotten.

Songwriters (amateur as well as professional, I'm sure) also tweaked patriotic songs so as not to offend their side, or to one-up the enemy. This is why many Civil War songs have a Northern and a Southern version ("Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" comes to mind; I believe the Southern version was made during the war, though I may be wrong).

Wherever the tunes originally came from, though, normal people (and soldiers, by extension) had no qualms about messing with the lyrics, altering tunes, and creating parodies. In that respect, soldiers definitely made their own songs, but those versions may not have survived. The parodies may never have become popular enough to be remembered; they may have made it into the mainstream but were never PRINTED and thus were lost; they may also have been...not appropriate.... for either, and were gracefully forgotten by their creators.
For instance, in my (severely limited) reading, I have come across several instances of soldiers singing/making new words to "The Man who has Plenty of Good Peanuts", which is so delightfully immature and easy that it invites parody. Thomas Colley recalls using it to trash-talk a farmer who wouldn't extend hospitality toward himself and his fellow cavalrymen: "The man who has plenty of good buttermilk, and giveth his neighbor none..." or something along those lines.

I also found several song books full of patriotic Civil War tunes that I have never heard of becase, though they were published, they either didn't become popular enough at the time to be remembered, or were passed over by modern recording artists. (This is a golden opportunity for anyone on here who plays an instrument better than I do...)

Long story short: although soldiers probably made up their own songs, most of the Civil War songs we have now exist because they were written down and printed, most likely by (semi) professional composers. Looking up authors' names might give a clue, but I imagine that the writers who could afford to put in the money and effort to get a song published were probably not in the rank and file.
If anyone has a song that was written by a soldier, I'd like to hear it!

Thanks Quiet1! Great response!

 

[becksbear]

There are a relatively small number of songs actually documented as being played by the bands and fife/drums of the war: these are from the bandbooks still surviving--25th Mass., 26th NC, etc. But, a vast amount of the songs most likely to have been played were "pop" songs from back home and learned by the different bands. The soldiers may well have slapped different lyrics on these, but the actual songs were usually pop songs. These, while not well documented, are a wealth of material for us today to see what the folks of the time were thinking, feeling, singing, playing on pianos in parlors across the country. Thus far, I have arranged and published literally hundreds of these songs for CW regimental and brigade brass band instrumentation, in an attempt to re-create what the soldiers and sailors were listening to.
For me, I am fascinated every day by what I learn from these old piano pieces and song sheets, both the artwork on the covers and, especially, the lyrics. These tell me more about contemporary history than any textbook ever can.

 

[Quiet1]

For me, I am fascinated every day by what I learn from these old piano pieces and song sheets, both the artwork on the covers and, especially, the lyrics. These tell me more about contemporary history than any textbook ever can.

Can you name a few favorites? Pretty pleeease?

 

[becksbear]

Here is one: after Emancipation, Patrick wrote the music for the Dexter Smith, Jr. lyrics that reach to the heart of what it meant to former and soon-to-be slaves.
"Freedom On the Old Plantation"

"Freedom everywhere; don't you hear the joy bells ringing?
then: Work boys everywhere; Free to speak and free to labor, free as man and neighbor
Freedom to the great and lowly, heaven guard it-it is holy!"

History books just don't convey the emotion that must have been felt at the time, does it?

Another fun piece is, "How Are You Telegraph?" by George Work and Wm. Collins. This one pokes fun at John Morgan of Morgan's Raiders fame, who disobeyed orders not to cross the Ohio River, but decided to invade Indiana. The song details in a fun manner his raid and subsequent capture, with emphasis on his penchant for using the telegraph for misleading Union troops as to his whereabouts. This is a very concise history lesson, yet presented as satire you will never find in those same history books.

Virtually all of these contemporary songs tell a story in a way that separates them from a dry history lesson. And to think, there are thousands of them!
Scott

 

[Mary L]

Thanks I always wondered how all those songs came about. I know they didn't have song producers like we do now. I am thinking that after the war they were wrote down by someone.

George Root was only one of many song writers. Off hand I can't think of some others. This time period saw music printed in never before seen and never matched again.

 

[Mary L]

I agree with Lampasas Bill.
Music was big business, both on the writing and performing ends.
The sheet music industry really seems to have taken off about this time, so many of what we think of as "American folk songs" are not what I would quite call folk music -- instead of coming from oral/aural tradition and being transcribed much later, they were written down by their composers and sold commercially before being learned "by ear" and passed around that way.
Basically, they were pop music.

Other "American" songs were actually "immigrants" -- stolen from the Brits, or whoever brought them across the pond ("Soldier's Joy" is one of these, I think; "Barbara Allen" for sure is).

Both professional and amateur poets wrote new lyrics to existing songs and published them as sheet music. This is a verrrrrry old tradition, and would have happened with secular, religious and patriotic songs.
Lots of great pieces resulted, as well as numerous forgettable ones.
"Richmond is a Hard Road" was originally a minstrel show song called "Jordan is a Hard Road". "John Brown's Body" became "Battle Hymn of the Republic." "Rosin the Beau" became.... oh gosh. Too many sets of lyrics to name -- and even more have probably been forgotten.

Songwriters (amateur as well as professional, I'm sure) also tweaked patriotic songs so as not to offend their side, or to one-up the enemy. This is why many Civil War songs have a Northern and a Southern version ("Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" comes to mind; I believe the Southern version was made during the war, though I may be wrong).

Wherever the tunes originally came from, though, normal people (and soldiers, by extension) had no qualms about messing with the lyrics, altering tunes, and creating parodies. In that respect, soldiers definitely made their own songs, but those versions may not have survived. The parodies may never have become popular enough to be remembered; they may have made it into the mainstream but were never PRINTED and thus were lost; they may also have been...not appropriate.... for either, and were gracefully forgotten by their creators.
For instance, in my (severely limited) reading, I have come across several instances of soldiers singing/making new words to "The Man who has Plenty of Good Peanuts", which is so delightfully immature and easy that it invites parody. Thomas Colley recalls using it to trash-talk a farmer who wouldn't extend hospitality toward himself and his fellow cavalrymen: "The man who has plenty of good buttermilk, and giveth his neighbor none..." or something along those lines.

I also found several song books full of patriotic Civil War tunes that I have never heard of becase, though they were published, they either didn't become popular enough at the time to be remembered, or were passed over by modern recording artists. (This is a golden opportunity for anyone on here who plays an instrument better than I do...)

Long story short: although soldiers probably made up their own songs, most of the Civil War songs we have now exist because they were written down and printed, most likely by (semi) professional composers. Looking up authors' names might give a clue, but I imagine that the writers who could afford to put in the money and effort to get a song published were probably not in the rank and file.
If anyone has a song that was written by a soldier, I'd like to hear it!

I agree that printed sheet music was big business. However, that did not make it's way to the soldiers. Music was played by ear for many soldiers and songs were passed along by word of mouth. The soldiers brought songs that were played at home and shared them around the campfire. Yes, many songs were lost along the way but many also survived the passage of time.