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"THE HAPPY LAND OP CANAAN": An Unpublished Civil War Song Ben Gray Lumpkin The optimistic, or boastful, spirit that prevailed in the South prior to the middle of 1863 is sharply reflected in an unpublished version of a Civil War song entitled "The Happy Land of Canaan." This old song has been preserved in a manuscript book begun by Mattie Jones Maxwell while she was a school girl during 1860 and 1861 in the Franklin Female College, Holly Springs, Mississippi. Sixteen stanzas in length, it is longer than printed variants of the same song; and it more specifically and accurately refers to military men and movements . I Published versions of this minstrel song were numerous and were circulated throughout the North and South during the late 1850's and early 1860's. "Happy Land of Canaan" was not sung as one version, however. At least a dozen published versions have come to my attention during the past year. Each popular minstrel seems to have composed and sung his own variations to include comments on current events. For example, one rendering alludes to the April 17, 1860, prize fight near Famborough, England, between the British champion Tom Sayers and the American champion John C. Heenan.1 Another version called "Happy Land of Kanaan," as sung by Jim Edwards,2 includes stanzas about the Heenan-Sayers fight;3 John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry; John Brown's execution on December 2, 1859, after Governor 1 Edwin Wolf, American Song Sheets, Slip Ballads, and Poetical Broadsides, 1850-1870: A Catalogue of the CoUection of the Library Company of Phihdelphia (Philadelphia, 1963), p. 57 (item 847a). Page 57 lists "The Happy Land of Canaan" under seven item numbers, 845-851, each a different version of the song. Items 847-849 list variations in typography and publishers, making a total of fifteen versions and variants, which range in length from three to eleven stanzas. Unfortunately, this catalogue does not note copyright or publication dates; and I have not succeeded in securing copies of all the versions listed. 2 Ibid., p. 57 (item 851). Prof. James W. Hall of Allentown, Pa., kindly sent me a photostatic copy of the ten stanzas of this version. 3 Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone (eds.), Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 1928-1944), VIII, 500. 44 Wise of Virginia refused to stay his execution; Lincoln's election in November, 1860; and his impending inauguration on March 4, 1861: Down in Harper's Ferry Section, there was an insurrection. Old Brown thought the Niggers would sustain him, But Massa Gov. Wise put his specks on his eyes, And sent him to the happy land of Kanaan. Now Abe Lincoln is elected as none of us expected. I hope the Constitution will sustain him. But if he don't do what's right well all get up a fight, And send him to the happy land of Kanaan. These light-hearted allusions to serious matters are followed by a stanza about a famous race horse named Flora Temple and a joke about hoop skirts: The Ladies' dress is neat as they promenade the street, Measuring just forty-five feet through. It takes twenty yards of Calico and a yard of Mareno blue To cover up the hoop de dooden doo. The allusions to Lincoln's election and inauguration indicate that this Jim Edwards version was composed during the winter of 1860-1861. On December 6, 1860, John Church, Jr., as publisher, filed a metrically rough version of "Happy Land of Canaan" in the Library of Congress. The title page credits this "Popular Banjo Solo" to William A. Wray, of the Campbell Minstrels of Cincinnati. The wide geographical circulation is suggested by the list of publisher's agents: dealers in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and New Orleans. This version composed by Wray includes a musical setting for piano and voice; the usual opening stanza that promises rhymes for the times; a second stanza about Harpers Ferry (the same ideas and almost the same phrasing as in the Jim Edwards version); stanza 3 about the ladies' skirts that are "a mile and a half round"; stanza 4 about some zouave cadets who "never...

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