When the brass bands weren't playing, soldiers sitting around the campfire took out what instruments they had--banjos, fiddles, guitars, harmonicas, bones, etc.--and played and/or sung their own music. Well-known patriotic tunes such as "Bonnie Blue Flag" or "Battle Cry of Freedom" were indeed favorites, but often minstrel or folk tunes were played and sung as well, sometimes accompanied by a clog dancer. Plays and minstrel shows were often put on by the troops as well, usually with some form of music mixed in. Below are a few accounts of music played in camp:
5th New Hampshire Infantry in camp at Falmouth, Va., summer of 1863:
Sterling Price's Missourians in winter quarters near Springfield, Mo., 1861-62:
Samson D. "Sam" and Robert M. Sweeney--brothers of the famous minstrel performer and banjo player Joel Sweeney--along with cousin Charles Sweeney all served in Co. H, 2nd Virginia Cavalry under J.E.B. Stuart and often entertained the lot with their playing. Sam Sweeney was particularly well known for his expertise on the banjo, Robert played the fiddle and Charles the guitar. Stuart enjoyed their music so much that he had them attached to his headquarters as a personal band of sorts, accompanied by other musical talents such as bones player Mulatto Bob. Sam Sweeney later succumbed to small pox on January 13, 1864, and his loss was sorely felt by Stuart and his crew.
Val C. Giles of Co. B, 4th Texas, recalled seeing Stuart and his cavalrymen for the first time in April 1862:
A sketch of Sam Sweeney playing the banjo in camp with a clog dancer.
"A breakdown in the wagoner's camp." A sketch by Edwin Forbes.
Painting of a Union soldier playing a cigar box fiddle in camp. Derived from an original sketch by Edwin Forbes.
James M. Polk of Co. I, 4th Texas Infantry, speaks of Longstreet's Corps' train ride to the Western Theater prior to Chickamauga. Veterans of many battles, they enjoyed the peaceful moments with music while they still could:
In some tents vocal or instrumental music was a feature of the evening. There was probably not a regiment in the service that did not boast at least one violinist, one banjoist, and a bone player in its ranks--not to mention other instruments generally found associated with these--and one or all of them could be heard in operation, either inside or in a company street, most any pleasant evening. However unskilful the artists, they were sure to be the centre of an interested audience. The usual medley of comic songs and negro melodies comprised the greater part of the entertainment, and, if the space admitted, a jig or clog dance was stepped out on a hard tack box or other crude platform. Sometimes a real negro was brought in to enliven the occasion by patting and dancing "Juba" or singing his quaint music.
- John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee, pp. 69-70.
The Negroes of the 5th Company [Washington Artillery]--cooks and body servants (of whom there were quite a number belonging to privates as well as officers), now came to camp from the rear where they usually stayed with the wagons. Good cooking, good banjo strumming, and dancing "break downs" now became the order of the day. We used to pit the darkies against one another in clog dances, and there was one "boy," as black as charcoal and as ugly as an ape, but a good hearted simple soul, Tony Barrow's boy Charles (or "General Bate" as we called him). He would get on the floor and with cheers and compliments and 'taffy' keep shuffling his feet until he would nearly drop.
- Philip D. Stephenson, The Civil War Memoir of Philip Daingerfield Stephenson, D.D., p. 356.
5th New Hampshire Infantry in camp at Falmouth, Va., summer of 1863:
Life back in the camp near Falmouth soon returned to normal. . . . "We have concerts of our own getting up," Larkin wrote home ten days after the retreat. "We have a Banjo, Violin, Tambourine & Bones."
- My Brave Boys: To War with Colonel Cross and the Fighting Fifth, p. 220.
Sterling Price's Missourians in winter quarters near Springfield, Mo., 1861-62:
Sometimes the old fiddler was invited down, one of the cabins was cleared out, and a regular dance came off, occasionally the officers joining in. Our circle was often enlivened by the presence of John Martin, a sort of staff attache of Dr Baily, our regimental surgeon; Martin could not be excelled on the banjo, and on these cocasions the "Monroe House" was filled with gay bursts of song, accompanied by the merry notes of the instrument. John was a splendid mimic, and could play in the regular African minstrel style, "Aunt Jemimy's plaster," and his other pieces of this sort were superlatively rich and ludicrous.
- Ephraim M. Anderson, Memoirs: Historical and Personal; Including the Campaigns of the First Missouri Confederate Brigade, p. 135.
Samson D. "Sam" and Robert M. Sweeney--brothers of the famous minstrel performer and banjo player Joel Sweeney--along with cousin Charles Sweeney all served in Co. H, 2nd Virginia Cavalry under J.E.B. Stuart and often entertained the lot with their playing. Sam Sweeney was particularly well known for his expertise on the banjo, Robert played the fiddle and Charles the guitar. Stuart enjoyed their music so much that he had them attached to his headquarters as a personal band of sorts, accompanied by other musical talents such as bones player Mulatto Bob. Sam Sweeney later succumbed to small pox on January 13, 1864, and his loss was sorely felt by Stuart and his crew.
Val C. Giles of Co. B, 4th Texas, recalled seeing Stuart and his cavalrymen for the first time in April 1862:
About ten o'clock we heard the jingling of spurs, the clanking of sabers, the tinkling of a banjo, and somebody singing. . . . General Stuart was riding in front and old Sweeney, rode by his side, picking his banjo and singing "Bonnie Jean," with Stuart and his men joining in on the chorus.
- Rags and Hope, p. 78.
Stuart had now organized the band of stringed instruments and singers which afterwards became so well known and so associated with him. Sweeney, a brother of the celebrated Joel Sweeney, the banjo player who had brought the banjo into European notice by his skill upon it, was one of the band; he played the banjo and sang. Bob, the General's mulatto servant, worked the bones, and then there was a violin player and a guitar player and quite a number of singers among the staff and couriers. . . . Stuart would have an eye not only for the reliability of the man and horse, but sometimes to the man's accomplishments in the line of enlivening a march, or beguiling the time around a campfire. Whenever he would hear of a man who had any amusing specialty and was willing to come, he would have him detailed as a courier at headquarters. For such duty, of course, the the wishes of the man were consulted. In this way he collected around him a number of experts, not only in music, but in theatricals and tricks of various kinds, and they added much to the pleasure of camp life. Sweeney and his banjo and his negro melodies were the favorites; and Sweeney always carried his instrument slung at his back on marches, and often in long night marches the life of the men was restored by its tinkle.
- W. W. Blackford, War Years With Jeb Stuart.
A sketch of Sam Sweeney playing the banjo in camp with a clog dancer.
There was plenty of music in our Texas camps. Every regiment had scores of men who could sing, and ours were not exceptions. Solos, quartets and choruses were often rendered in a style that would have done credit to trained vocalists. There were several fiddles and men who could play them--perhaps not in the style of Ole Bull or Remenyi, but their audiences were not critical--and the music was all-sufficient for stag-dances that were so common. There was a guitar in the Sixty-fifth, which had escaped all perils of campaigning for more than two years. Many will remember the frequent visits of Dr. Wheeler, of one of the Illinois regiments, who used to play the guitar and sing by the hour.
- Wilbur F. Hinman, Story of the Sherman brigade, p. 760.
As usual the musicians of the regiment were much sought after. Under musician John G. Brown of Company A, a string band was formed, which furnished music for all the regimental dances of the brigade. Whenever the pay was not forthcoming from the outside regiments, Brown and his fiddle always ordered a strike in the midst of the festivities, which brought out the requisite amount of postal currency and sutler's chips and the capers proceeded.
- W.J. Coulter, The Story of the Fifty-Fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, p. 159.
Near one of the huge [camp] fires a kind of arbor was nicely constructed of the branches of trees, which were so interwoven as to form a kind of wall. Inside this were seated a couple of fiddlers, making elegant music on their fiddles. Around the fire, groups were dancing jigs, reels, and doubles. Even the officers' colored servants had collected in a group by themselves, and, while some timed the music by slapping their hands on their knees, others were capering and whirling around in the most grotesque manner, showing their white teeth as they grinned in delight, or "yah, yah" ed, at the boisterous fun.
- Joseph P. Blessington, The Campaigns of Walker's Texas Division, pp. 159-60.
"A breakdown in the wagoner's camp." A sketch by Edwin Forbes.
Painting of a Union soldier playing a cigar box fiddle in camp. Derived from an original sketch by Edwin Forbes.
James M. Polk of Co. I, 4th Texas Infantry, speaks of Longstreet's Corps' train ride to the Western Theater prior to Chickamauga. Veterans of many battles, they enjoyed the peaceful moments with music while they still could:
We started west and traveled north through North Carolina. The train was heavily loaded and we traveled slow. Some of us were on top of the cars; one fellow playing a fiddle, another fellow down in the car blowing a horn, all happy lords, yet knowing that at the same time we were going right into another big killing and many of us would go to our long homes.
- The Confederate Soldier; and Ten Years in South America, p. 23.
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