In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

{ 1 } INTRODUCTION The Civil War was the first American war fought to music, or so I assumed when I began researching this book. Popular depictions of the war are loaded with references to popular songs: Scarlett O’Hara frequently encounters and sometimes performs sentimental and patriotic numbers in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind; Michael Shaara uses the popular antebellum ballad “Kathleen Mavourneen” as a symbol of fratricidal strife in The Killer Angels; black soldiers in the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts gather for a “shout” the night before they attack Fort Wagner in Glory; and Ken Burns’s monumental documentary, The Civil War, effectively uses many songs from the 1860s. Historians, too, often sprinkle references to Civil War music in their studies of the conflict. Put together, these depictions cannot help but give the impression of a war with a musical soundtrack .1 The sources I examined repeatedly confirmed this assumption. According to nineteenth-century Americans, music was everywhere. It rang out from parlor pianos in homes across the country; it thundered from crowds of civilians at political rallies; it beat the steady rhythms of soldier life; and it declared the newfound freedom of African Americans. Although it was certainly a prominent part of northern and southern culture before 1861, the war catapulted music to a new level of cultural significance. More than mere entertainment, it provided a valuable way for Americans to express their thoughts and feelings about the conflict.Conversely, songs influenced the thoughts and feeling of civilians, soldiers , and slaves—shaping how they viewed the war.2 Yet, few historians have considered how music functioned during the 1860s. Often, one or two pieces are plucked from the mass of available examples to support a historical interpretation, but music rarely occupies a central role in Civil War studies.3 Musicologists, on the other hand, have not neglected the war’s music. Though their approach does not address the same questions that historians ask, musicologists have made significant contributions to understanding the content and performance of Civil War songs.4 My goal is to push beyond lyrical and musical analysis and move music out from the periphery of Civil War history. Musicologists have done an admirable job collecting and analyzing Civil War songs, but it is equally important to explore their role in daily life. Almost any war diary, letter collection, or memoir 2 } Introduction contains at least a passing reference to music. Furthermore, in the Civil War press, comments on musical events and trends are frequent.5 The extremely large collection of contemporary references paints a vivid picture of how music functioned in the Civil War and the central role it played in the lives of Americans . Of all the songs available, though, which ones were actually popular during the conflict? This question is more important than it may seem at first glance. Occasional references to songs by historians and studies of particular bodies of work by musicologists are valuable. However, a song’s interpretive value must be measured against its significance to the people of its time. Obviously, any piece has some value for researchers, but widely popular songs surely had a greater historical impact.Only an examination of commentary from the period can fully address this issue.Certain songs may have sold well, and certain types of music may have enjoyed wider publication, but one must read what Americans actually said about these pieces to understand which ones truly resonated.6 My research confirmed the popularity and significance of many songs, such as “Dixie,” but there were some surprises. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic ,” for example, was not widely performed during the war, despite decades of commentary from historians and musicologists to the contrary. Its progenitor , “John Brown’s Body,” enjoyed much greater prominence. Furthermore, the long-standing assertion that sentimental music eclipsed patriotic music as the war progressed—most strongly made byWillard A. and PorterW. Heaps in their exhaustive studyof Civil War songs,The Singing Sixties—appears to be false.7 Publishers may well have turned increasingly to sentimental themes, but the public remained wedded to the patriotic songs that had been popularly embraced before 1863. By illuminating how and why certain songs became popular, my research also exposed some of the ways that Civil War society and culture functioned. Many songs first appealed to certain groups who shared them with others, often for political and social reasons. In addition, the content and meaning of these pieces changed as they became more widely known...

Share