Chapter III: Part 3

Strange to say, when it first appeared the song aroused no special attention. Though it was destined to have such world-wide appreciation, it won its first victory in Libby Prison. Nearly a year after its publication, a copy of a newspaper containing it was smuggled into the prison, where many hundreds of Northern officers and soldiers were confined, among them being the brilliant Chaplain, now Bishop, Charles C. McCabe. The Chaplain could sing anything and make music out of it, but he seized on this splendid battle hymn with enthusiastic delight. It makes the blood in one's veins boil again with patriotic fervor to hear him tell how the tears rained down strong men's cheeks as they sang in the Southern prison, far away from home and friends, those wonderful closing lines:--

"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on."

It was Chaplain McCabe who had the privilege and honor of calling public attention to the song after his release. He came to Washington and in his lecture (that has come to be almost as famous as the battle hymn) on "The Bright Side of Life in Libby Prison," he described the singing of the hymn by himself and his companions in that dismal place of confinement. People now began to ask who had written the hymn, and the author's name was easily established by a reference to the magazine.

_JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE, MOTHER._

Just before the battle, mother,
I am thinking most of you,
While upon the field we're watching,
With the enemy in view--
Comrades brave are round me lying,
Fill'd with tho't of home and God;
For well they know that on the morrow,
Some will sleep beneath the sod.
Farewell, mother, you may never
Press me to your heart again;
But oh, you'll not forget me, mother,
If I'm number'd with the slain.

Oh I long to see you, mother,
And the loving ones at home,
But I'll never leave our banner
Till in honor I can come.
Tell the traitors all around you
That their cruel words, we know,
In ev'ry battle kill our soldiers
By the help they give the foe.

Hark! I hear the bugles sounding,
'Tis the signal for the fight,
Now may God protect us, mother,
As he ever does the right.
Hear the "Battle Cry of Freedom,"
How it swells upon the air,
Oh, yes, we'll rally round the standard,
Or we'll perish nobly there.

--_George F. Root._

George F. Root was born in Sheffield, Massachusetts, in 1820. He has perhaps written more popular war songs than any other American. His songs have carried his name to the ends of the earth. He was a musician from childhood. He began as a boy by getting hold of every musical instrument he could find and attempting to master it. When about eighteen years of age, he left his father's farm in the beautiful Housatonic Valley, and went to Boston to obtain instruction in music, which he had already determined to make his life-work. He was very fortunate in finding employment with a Boston teacher named A. B. Johnson, who also took the young countryman into his own home and manifested the warmest interest in his superior musical gifts. It was not long before young Root became a partner in Mr. Johnson's school. He was ambitious and industrious, and was soon acting as leader for a number of church choirs. There are several churches in Boston to-day which recall as one of the legends of their history that George F. Root used to lead their music. His reputation as a teacher spread so rapidly that he was sought after to give special instruction in other institutions. Later he went to New York and became the principal of the Abbott Institute.

Mr. Root was not satisfied to make anything less than the best out of himself, and so went to Europe in 1850 and spent a year in special work improving his musical talent. About this time he began writing songs, in which he had success from the start. These won him such wide recognition that Mason and Bradbury, the great musical publishers of that day, secured his aid in the making of church music books. He now retired from the field of teaching and devoted himself to composing music and the holding of great musical conventions.

On the breaking out of the war, Dr. Root was in Chicago, and from that Western center of patriotic fire and enthusiasm he sent forth scores of songs that thrilled the heart of the country. While the _Battle Cry of Freedom_ was perhaps his most famous song, there are a number of others that keep, even to this day, close company with it in popularity. The old veterans who still linger on the scene, as well as those who were but boys and girls in those days, well remember the martial enthusiasm that was evoked by his prison song, _Tramp, Tramp, Tramp!_ The mingled pathos and hopefulness of it has been rarely, if ever, surpassed:--

"In the prison cell I sit,
Thinking, mother dear, of you,
And our bright and happy home so far away,
And the tears they fill my eyes,
Spite of all that I can do,
Tho' I try to cheer my comrades and be gay.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,
Cheer up, comrades, they will come,
And beneath the starry flag
We will breathe the air again,
Of the freeland in our own beloved home.

"In the battle front we stood,
When their fiercest charge they made,
And they swept us off a hundred men or more;
But before we reached their lines,
They were beaten back dismayed,
And we heard the cry of vict'ry o'er and o'er.

"So within the prison cell,
We are waiting for the day
That shall come to open wide the iron door,
And the hollow eye grows bright,
And the poor heart almost gay,
As we think of seeing home and friends once more."

To appreciate the pathos of that song one needs to hear a company of Grand Army Veterans tell about singing it in Andersonville or Libby Prisons.

_Just Before the Battle, Mother_ appealed to the tender side of those who remained at home, and made it a very popular song not only for public gatherings, but in drawing-rooms, and camps in the twilight of the evening. The sequel to it, _Just After the Battle_, was equally as popular and retains its popularity though a generation has passed away since it was written. It, too, has the vein of optimism in it which runs through all of Doctor Root's work. Perhaps that is one of the secrets of his great power over the human heart. While he makes us weep with the tenderness of the sentiment, there is always a rainbow on his cloud, a rainbow with promises of a brighter to-morrow. _Just After the Battle_ has that rainbow in it, in the hope expressed by the singer that he shall still see his mother again in the old home:--

"Still upon the field of battle
I am lying, mother dear,
With my wounded comrades waiting
For the morning to appear.
Many sleep to waken never,
In this world of strife and death,
And many more are faintly calling,
With their feeble dying breath.
Mother dear, your boy is wounded,
And the night is drear with pain,
But still I feel that I shall see you,
And the dear old home again.

"Oh, the first great charge was fearful,
And a thousand brave men fell,
Still, amid the dreadful carnage,
I was safe from shot and shell.
So, amid the fatal shower,
I had nearly pass'd the day,
When here the dreaded Minie struck me,
And I sunk amid the fray.

"Oh, the glorious cheer of triumph,
When the foeman turn'd and fled,
Leaving us the field of battle,
Strewn with dying and with dead.
Oh, the torture and the anguish,
That I could not follow on,
But here amid my fallen comrades,
I must wait till morning's dawn."

_WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER_.

Dearest love, do you remember,
When we last did meet,
How you told me that you lov'd me,
Kneeling at my feet?
Oh! how proud you stood before me,
In your suit of blue,
When you vow'd to me and country
Ever to be true.
Weeping, sad and lonely,
Hopes and fears how vain!
When this cruel war is over,
Praying that we meet again!

When the summer breeze is sighing,
Mournfully along;
Or when autumn leaves are falling,
Sadly breathes the song.
Oft in dreams I see thee lying
On the battle plain,
Lonely, wounded, even dying,
Calling, but in vain.

If amid the din of battle
Nobly you should fall,
Far away from those who love you,
None to hear you call--
Who would whisper words of comfort
Who would soothe your pain?
Ah! the many cruel fancies,
Ever in my brain.

But our country call'd you, darling,
Angels cheer your way;
While our nation's sons are fighting,
We can only pray.
Nobly strike for God and liberty,
Let all nations see
How we love the starry banner,
Emblem of the free.

--_Charles Carroll Sawyer._

Charles Carroll Sawyer was born in Mystic, Connecticut, in 1833. His father, Captain Joshua Sawyer, was an old-fashioned Yankee sea captain. The family moved to New York when Charles was quite young, and he obtained his education in that city. The poetic instinct was marked in his youth, and at the age of twelve he wrote several sonnets which attracted a good deal of attention among his acquaintances. At the breaking out of the war he began to write war songs, and in a few months was recognized everywhere as one of the most successful musical composers of the day. His most popular songs were _Who will Care for Mother Now?_ _Mother would Comfort Me_, and the one we have selected--_When this Cruel War is Over_. Each of these three songs named reached a sale of over a million copies before the close of the war, and were sung in almost every mansion and farmhouse and cabin from the Atlantic to the Pacific throughout all the northern part of the Union, as well as in every camp where soldiers waited for battle.

His song, _Mother would Comfort Me_, was suggested, as indeed were most of his songs, by a war incident. A soldier in one of the New York regiments had been wounded and was taken prisoner at Gettysburg. He was placed in a Southern hospital, and when the doctor told him that nothing more could be done for him, his dying words were: "Mother would comfort me if she were here." When Sawyer learned of the incident, he wrote the song, the first verse of which runs as follows:--

"Wounded and sorrowful, far from my home,
Sick among strangers, uncared for, unknown;
Even the birds that used sweetly to sing
Are silent, and swiftly have taken the wing.
No one but mother can cheer me to-day,
No one for me could so fervently pray;
None to console me, no kind friend is near--
Mother would comfort me if she were here."

This song captured the country at once, and spread its author's fame everywhere.

On another occasion a telegram came to a Brooklyn wife concerning her husband who was killed on the battlefield. The last words of the despatch read: "He was not afraid to die." Sawyer caught up that note in the telegram, and wrote his splendid song beginning,--

"Like a true and faithful soldier
He obeyed our country's call;
Vowing to protect its banner
Or in battle proudly fall:
Noble, cheerful, brave and fearless,
When most needed, ever nigh,
Always living as a Christian,
'He was not afraid to die.'"

Another of his greatest creations found its inspiration in a similar way. During one of the battles, among the many noble men that fell was a young man who had been the only support of an aged and invalid mother for years. Overhearing the doctor tell those who were near him that he could not live, he placed his hands across his forehead, and with a trembling voice said, while burning tears ran down his cheeks: "Who will care for mother, now?" Sawyer took up these words which voiced the generous heart of the dying youth, and made them the title and theme of one of his noblest songs. The first verse is full of pathos,--

"Why am I so weak and weary,
See how faint my heated breath,
All around to me seems darkness,
Tell me, comrades, is this death?
Ah! how well I know your answer;
To my fate I meekly bow,
If you'll only tell me truly
Who will care for mother now?"

At that time, when every community throughout the North as well as the South had more than one mother whose sole dependence for the future days of weakness and old age was the strong arm of some soldier boy at the front, this song struck a chord that was very tender, and it was sung and whistled and played in street and theater and drawing-room throughout the entire country.

Sawyer's songs were unique in that they were popular in both armies. They never contained a word of malice, and appealed to the universal human heart. At the close of the war a newspaper published at Milledgeville, Georgia, said of Sawyer's songs, "His sentiments are fraught with the greatest tenderness, and never one word has he written about the South or the war that could wound the sore chords of a Southern heart."

The most universally famous of all Sawyer's songs was _When this Cruel War is Over_. As the long years of carnage dragged on, the fascination for the glamour and glory of war disappeared, and its horrid cruelty impressed people, North and South, more and more. Loving hearts in the army and at home caught up this song as an appropriate expression of the hunger for peace that was in their souls. A popular Southern song, _When upon the Field of Glory_, the words of which were written by J. H. Hewitt and the music by H. L. Schreiner, was an answer to this song of Sawyer's. As it is one of the best of the songs of the Confederacy, it is worth repetition here:--

"When upon the field of glory,
'Mid the battle cry,
And the smoke of cannon curling
Round the mountain high;
Then sweet mem'ries will come o'er me,
Painting home and thee,
Nerving me to deeds of daring,
Struggling to be free.
Weep no longer, dearest,
Tears are now in vain.
When this cruel war is over
We may meet again.

"Oft I think of joys departed,
Oft I think of thee;
When night's sisters throw around me,
Their star'd canopy.

Dreams so dear come o'er my pillow,
Bringing up the past,
Oh! how sweet the soldier's visions!
Oh! how short they last!

"When I stand a lonely picket,
Gazing on the moon,
As she walks her starry pathway,
In night's silent noon;
I will think that thou art looking
On her placid face,
Then our tho'ts will meet together,
In a heav'nly place.

"When the bullet, swiftly flying
Thro' the murky air,
Hits its mark, my sorrow'd bosom,
Leaving death's pang there;
Then my tho'ts on thee will turn, love,
While I prostrate lie.
My pale lips shall breathe, 'God bless thee--
For our cause I die!'
Weep then for me, dearest,
When I'm free from pain;
When this cruel war is over,
In heav'n we'll meet again."

_MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA._

Bring the good old bugle, boys, we'll sing another song,
Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along,
Sing it as we used to sing it fifty thousand strong,
While we were marching through Georgia.
Hurrah! hurrah! We bring the jubilee!
Hurrah! hurrah! The flag that makes you free!
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,
While we were marching through Georgia.

How the darkies shouted when they heard the joyful sound!
How the turkeys gobbled which our commissary found!
How the sweet potatoes even started from the ground,
While we were marching through Georgia.

Yes, and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears,
When they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years,
Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers,
While we were marching through Georgia.

"Sherman's dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast!"
So the saucy rebels said, and 'twas a handsome boast,
Had they not forgot, alas! to reckon with the host,
While we were marching through Georgia.

So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and her train,
Sixty miles in latitude; three hundred to the main;
Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain,
While we were marching through Georgia.

--_Henry Clay Work._

Among Mr. Work's famous war songs, none have captured so wide an audience, or held their own so well since the war, as _Marching through Georgia_. I think it is the foraging idea, so happily expressed, that, more than anything else except the contagious music which starts the most rheumatic foot to keeping time, has given this song its popular sway. There was something so reckless and romantic in Sherman's cutting loose from his base of supplies and depending on the country through which he marched for food for his army, that the song which expressed this seized the imagination of the people.

General Sherman in his _Memoirs_ says: "The skill and success of the men in collecting forage was one of the features of this march. Each brigade commander had authority to detail a company of foragers, usually about fifty men with one or two commissioned officers, selected for their boldness and enterprise. This party would be despatched before daylight with a knowledge of the intended day's march and camp, would proceed on foot five or six miles from the route traveled by their brigade, and then visit every plantation and farm within range. They would usually procure a wagon, or family carriage, load it with bacon, cornmeal, turkeys, chickens, ducks, and everything that could be used as food or forage, and would then regain the main road, usually in advance of their train. When this came up, they would deliver to the brigade commissary the supplies thus gathered by the way. Often would I pass these foraging parties at the roadside, waiting for their wagons to come up, and was amused at their strange collections--mules, horses, even cattle, packed with old saddles and loaded with hams, bacon, bags of cornmeal, and poultry of every character and description. Although this foraging was attended with great danger and hard work, there seemed to be a charm about it that attracted the soldiers, and it was a privilege to be detailed on such a party. Daily they returned mounted on all sorts of beasts, which were at once taken from them and appropriated to the general use; but the next day they would start out again on foot, only to repeat the experience of the day before."

Bishop Ames, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, used to greatly enjoy relating how he was invited to share the carriage of a German Baron on the occasion of the great military review in Washington at the close of the war. They had a favorable position for viewing the procession. Hour after hour the soldiers marched by. There rumbled the field artillery; there crowded by, with dripping sides and champing mouths, the cavalry, and after them tramped the unwearying infantry. At one time there passed a brigade clothed in brand-new uniforms, specially brought out for the occasion. Every uniform was clean and beautiful, every bayonet and sword polished and gleaming. The drill was perfect. The men were at the highest point of condition. Every motion and look bespoke the well-drilled soldier. As they marched by the Baron turned around excitedly to Bishop Ames and said, "Pishop, those men can whip the world."

Immediately following them, purposely to bring out the strong contrast, was a brigade of old veterans, just as they came from their long campaign in the South. They were some of the men who had marched with Sherman to the sea--the men who had picked up the ducks and the cornmeal by the wayside. They were soiled and ragged. One man had one leg of his trousers patched out by strange cloth; another had no coat; another had a teakettle swung on his gun over his shoulder; another had part of a ham on his bayonet. So they represented the march through Georgia. They rolled along with an easy, swinging gait, chatting, laughing, occasionally imitating some animal, giving a bark, or a howl, or a screech, yet every man a soldier and keeping step to the music and in line. As these men with their tattered uniforms and torn and stained flags went by, the Baron sprang up, and with tears rolling down his cheeks, threw his arms around Bishop Ames and cried: "Mein Gott! Pishop, these men could _whip the devil_!"

General Sherman himself was never enthusiastic over the song that has immortalized his famous march. I have been unable to find in his _Memoirs_ a single reference to it; but he quotes there in full a fine song by Adjutant S. H. M. Byers which he evidently would have been very glad to have had replace the simpler lines of Mr. Work. But Work had the key to the people's heart, and his song will live as long as the American flag. Mr. Byers' song, however, is a splendid piece of work and well worth repeating here. General Sherman says that on the afternoon of February 17, 1865, on overhauling his pockets, according to custom, to read more carefully the various notes and memoranda received during the day, he found a paper which had been given him by a Union prisoner who had escaped from Columbia. "It proved," writes the General, "to be the song of _Sherman's March to the Sea_, which had been composed by Adjutant S. H. M. Byers, of the Fifth Iowa Infantry, when a prisoner in the asylum at Columbia, which had been beautifully written off by a fellow-prisoner, and handed to me in person. This appeared to me so good that I at once sent for Byers, attached him to my staff, provided him with horse and equipment, and took him as far as Fayetteville, North Carolina, whence he was sent to Washington as bearer of despatches."

The writing of this song was a good thing for Byers, as it secured him the lifelong friendship of General Sherman, and through his kindly support he was afterward made consul at Zurich, Switzerland. Adjutant Byers said that there was among the prisoners at Columbia an excellent glee club who used to sing it well, with an audience, often, of rebel ladies. It is truly a fine poem:--

"Our camp-fires shone bright on the mountain
That frowned on the river below,
As we stood by our guns in the morning,
And eagerly watched for the foe;
When a rider came out of the darkness
That hung over mountain and tree,
And shouted, 'Boys, up and be ready!
For Sherman will march to the sea!'
Then sang we the song of our chieftain,
That echoed over river and lea;
And the stars in our banner shone brighter
When Sherman marched down to the sea!

"Then cheer upon cheer for bold Sherman
Went up from each valley and glen,
And the bugles reëchoed the music
That came from the lips of the men;
For we knew that the stars in our banner
More bright in their splendor would be,
And that blessings from Northland would greet us,
When Sherman marched down to the sea!

"Then forward, boys! forward to battle!
We marched on our wearisome way,
We stormed the wild hills of Resaca--
God bless those who fell on that day!
Then Kenesaw frowned in its glory,
Frowned down on the flag of the free;
But the East and the West bore our standard,
And Sherman marched on to the sea!

"Still onward we pressed, till our banners
Swept out from Atlanta's grim walls,
And the blood of the patriot dampened
The soil where the traitor-flag falls;
But we paused not to weep for the fallen,
Who slept by each river and tree,
Yet we twined a wreath of the laurel
As Sherman marched down to the sea!

"Oh, proud was our army that morning,
That stood where the pine darkly towers,
When Sherman said, 'Boys, you are weary,
But to-day fair Savannah is ours!'
Then sang we the song of our chieftain,
That echoed over river and lea;
And the stars in our banner shone brighter
When Sherman camped down by the sea!"

_MY MARYLAND._

The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland, my Maryland!

Hark to an exiled son's appeal,
Maryland!
My mother State, to thee I kneel,
Maryland!
For life or death, for woe or weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,
Maryland, my Maryland!

Thou wilt not cower in the dust,
Maryland!
Thy beaming sword shall never rust,
Maryland!
Remember Carroll's sacred trust,
Remember Howard's warlike thrust,
And all thy slumberers with the just,
Maryland, my Maryland!

Come! 'Tis the red dawn of the day,
Maryland!
Come with thy panoplied array,
Maryland!
With Ringgold's spirit for the fray,
With Watson's blood at Monterey,
With fearless Lowe and dashing May,
Maryland, my Maryland!

Dear mother, burst the tyrant's chain,
Maryland!
Virginia should not call in vain,
Maryland!
She meets her sisters on the plain,
"_Sic semper!_" 'tis the proud refrain
That baffles minions back amain,
Maryland!
Arise in majesty again,
Maryland, my Maryland!

Come! for thy shield is bright and strong,
Maryland!
Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,
Maryland!
Come to thine own heroic throng
Stalking with liberty along,
And chant thy dauntless slogan-song,
Maryland, my Maryland!

I see the blush upon thy cheek,
Maryland!
But thou wast ever bravely meek,
Maryland!
But lo! There surges forth a shriek,
From hill to hill, from creek to creek,
Potomac calls to Chesapeake,
Maryland, my Maryland!

Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll,
Maryland!
Thou wilt not crook to his control,
Maryland!
Better the fire upon thee roll,
Better the shot, the blade, the bowl,
Than crucifixion of the soul,
Maryland, my Maryland!

I hear the distant thunder-hum,
Maryland!
The "Old Line's" bugle, fife, and drum,
Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb;
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum--
She breathes, she burns! She'll come!
She'll come!
Maryland, my Maryland!

--_James Ryder Randall._

_My Maryland_, one of the most popular songs of the Confederacy, was written by James Ryder Randall, in 1861. Randall was at that time professor of English literature at Poydras College, upon the Fausse Rivière, of Louisiana. He was very young, and had but recently come from college in Maryland. He was full of poetry and romance, and when one day in April, 1861, he read in the New Orleans _Delta_ the news of the attack on the Massachusetts Sixth as they passed through Baltimore, it fired his blood. "This account excited me greatly," Mr. Randall writes. "I had long been absent from my native city, and the startling event there inflamed my mind. That night I could not sleep, for my nerves were all unstrung, and I could not dismiss what I had read in the paper from my mind. About midnight I arose, lit a candle, and went to my desk. Some powerful spirit appeared to possess me, and almost involuntarily I proceeded to write the song of _My Maryland_. I remember that the idea appeared to take shape first as music in the brain--some wild air that I cannot now recall. The whole poem of nine stanzas, as originally written, was dashed off rapidly when once begun."

(_View from Maryland Heights_)]

As Doctor Matthews well says, there is often a feeling afloat in the minds of men, undefined and vague for want of one to give it form, and held in solution, as it were, until a chance word dropped in the ear of a poet suddenly crystallizes this feeling into song, in which all may see clearly and sharply reflected what in their own thought was shapeless and hazy. It was young Randall's fortune to be the instrument through which the South spoke, and, by a natural reaction, his burning lines helped "fire the Southern heart."

The form of the poem was suggested by Mangan's _Karamanian Exile_,--

"I see thee ever in my dreams,
Karaman!
Thy hundred hills, thy thousand streams,
Karaman, O Karaman!
As when thy gold-bright morning gleams,
As when the deepening sunset seams
With lines of light thy hills and streams,
Karaman!
So now thou loomest on my dreams,
Karaman, O Karaman!"

The previous use of this form, which is perhaps the most effective possible for a battle hymn, by no means detracts from Randall's stirring poem.

The poem would never have had great effect, however, if it had not been fortunate in drafting to its service a splendid piece of music. Miss Hattie Cary, of Baltimore, afterward the wife of Professor H. M. Martin, of Johns-Hopkins University, brought about the wedding which enabled Randall's song to reach every camp-fire of the Southern armies. "The Glee Club was to hold its meeting in our parlors one evening early in June," she writes, "and my sister Jennie, being the only musical member of the family, had charge of the program on the occasion. With a schoolgirl's eagerness to score a success, she resolved to secure some new and ardent expression of feelings that were by this time wrought up to the point of explosion. In vain she searched through her stock of songs and airs--nothing seemed intense enough to suit her. Aroused by her tone of despair, I came to the rescue with the suggestion that she should adapt the words of _Maryland, my Maryland_, which had been constantly on my lips since the appearance of the lyric a few days before in the South. I produced the paper and began declaiming the verses. '_Lauriger Horatius_,' she exclaimed, and in a flash the immortal song found a voice in the stirring air so perfectly adapted to it. That night when her contralto voice rang out the stanzas, the refrain rolled forth from every throat without pause or preparation; and the enthusiasm communicated itself with such effect to the crowd assembled beneath our windows as to endanger seriously the liberties of the party."

This air was originally an old German student melody used for a lovely German lyric, _Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum_, which Longfellow has numbered among his translations. The first verse is as follows,--

"O hemlock tree! O hemlock tree! how faithful are thy branches!
Green not only in summer time,
But in the winter's frost and rime!
O hemlock tree! O hemlock tree! how faithful are thy branches!"

Some one has well said that the transmigration of tunes is a large and fertile subject. The capturing of the air of a jolly college song and harnessing it to the service of a fiery battle hymn may seem very strange, but not so to those who are familiar with the adventures which a tune has often undergone.

This song was not only popular through the South, but so stately and pleasing was the melody that it was often sung in the North. A soldier relates: "I remember hearing it sung under circumstances that for the time made me fancy it was the sweetest song I ever listened to. Our command had just reached Frederick City, Maryland, after a distressing forced march, and going into bivouac, the staff to which I was attached took up their quarters on the piazza of a lonely mansion, and there, wrapping themselves in their blankets, with their saddles for pillows, sought needed repose. Sleep would not come to my eyelids. The night was a delicious one; it was warm, but a slight breeze was stirring, and the sky was clear, and the stars shone brilliantly. The stillness was profound, every one around me was asleep, when suddenly there fell upon my ears the song:--

'The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!'

The voice was a mezzo-soprano, full, round, and clear, and the charming melody was sung with infinite tenderness and delicacy of shading. I listened almost breathlessly, for it was the first time I had heard the song, and as it was ended, I arose for the purpose of ascertaining who it was that sang so sweetly. I found her in the person of a plump negro girl of about sixteen years, with a face blacker than the smoke in Vulcan's smithy."

A delightful contrast to the attack of the mob on the Massachusetts Sixth, in Baltimore, in 1861, was furnished recently when the historic Sixth from Boston passed through Baltimore on their way to the South to take part in the invasion of Cuba. Baltimore gave herself up to seeing how splendidly she could receive the regiment that had once been mobbed in her streets. They were received at the station by the Mayor, the school-children were drawn up in line along the route of march, and the soldiers from Massachusetts were pelted with flowers instead of stones and bullets. Each soldier was given a little box containing cake and fruit, and a love letter, while a great motto met their eyes which said: "Let the welcome of '98 efface the memory of '61."

_ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC._

"All quiet along the Potomac," they say,
"Except now and then a stray picket
Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro,
By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
'Tis nothing: a private or two now and then
Will not count in the news of the battle;
Not an officer lost, only one of the men
Moaning out all alone the death-rattle."

All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming;
Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
Or the light of the watchfires, are gleaming.
A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night-wind
Through the forest leaves softly is creeping:
While stars up above, with their glittering eyes,
Keep guard,--for the army is sleeping.

There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread,
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
And thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed,
Far away in the cot on the mountain.
His musket falls slack, his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle with memories tender,
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep;
For their mother--may heaven defend her!

The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then,
That night when the love yet unspoken
Leaped up to his lips, when low, murmured vows
Were pledged to be ever unbroken;
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes off tears that are welling,
And gathers his gun closer up to his side,
As if to keep down the heart swelling.

He passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree,
The footstep is lagging and weary,
Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,
Toward the shade of the forest so dreary.
Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves,
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
It looked like a rifle--"Ha! Mary, good-bye,"
And the lifeblood is ebbing and plashing.

All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
No sound save the rush of the river;
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead,
The picket's off duty forever.
Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves,
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
It looked like a rifle--"Ha! Mary, good-bye,"
And the lifeblood is ebbing and plashing.

--_Ethel Lynn Beers._

Mrs. Beers's right to the authorship of this famous song has been very severely contested, but there seems to be no reason now to doubt that the really fine poem is hers. Though there have been numerous claimants for its authorship, the one who has come nearest to carrying the day is, strange to say, a Southerner. It is curious indeed that a war song should be claimed by both sides, but that has been the story of this song. This Southerner is Lamar Fontaine. Mr. Fontaine was born at Gay Hill, Texas. Twenty years before the war his father moved to Austin, Texas, and was secretary to General Lamar, for whom the son was named. When the war broke out this young Lamar Fontaine became a major in the Confederate Army. Some time in 1862, when the poem _All Quiet Along the Potomac_ appeared in a Southern newspaper, Lamar Fontaine's name was attached to it. Davidson, the author of _Living Writers of the South_, wrote to Fontaine in regard to the authorship of this hymn, and in replying Fontaine said: "The poem in question was written by me while our army lay at Fairfax Courthouse, or rather the greater portion, in and around that place. On the second day of August, 1861, I first read it to a few of my messmates in Company I, Second Virginia Cavalry. During the month of August I gave away many manuscript copies to soldiers, and some few to ladies in and about Leesburg, Loudon County, Virginia. In fact, I think that most of the men belonging to the Second Virginia, then commanded by Colonel Radford, were aware of the fact that I was the author of it. I never saw the piece in print until just before the battle of Leesburg (October 21, 1861), and then it was in a Northern paper with the notice that it had been found on the dead body of a picket. I hope the controversy between myself and others in regard to _All Quiet Along the Potomac To-night_, will soon be forever settled. I wrote it, and the world knows it; and they may howl over it, and give it to as many authors as they please. I wrote it, and I am a Southern man, and I am proud of the title, and am glad that my children will know that the South was the birthplace of their fathers, from their generation back to the seventh."

Another Southern man, however, and a distinguished one, puts a very different look on the case. Mr. Chandler Harris of Georgia writes a letter for insertion in Mr. Davidson's volume in the course of which he says: "After a careful and impartial investigation of all the facts in my reach, I have come to the conclusion that Mrs. Beers, and not Mr. Fontaine, wrote the poem in question. My reasons for believing that Mr. Fontaine is not the author of _All Quiet_, are several:

"1. The poem appeared in _Harper's Weekly_ for November 30, 1861, as _The Picket Guard_, over the initials of Mrs. Ethel Beers of New York.

"2. It did not make its appearance in any Southern paper until about April or May, 1862.

"3. It was published as having been found in the pocket of a dead soldier on the battlefield. It is more than probable that the dead soldier was a Federal, and that the poem had been clipped from _Harper's_.

"4. I have compared the poem in _Harper's_ with the same as it first appeared in the Southern papers, and find the punctuation to be precisely the same.

"5. Mr. Fontaine, so far as I have seen, has given elsewhere no evidence of the powers displayed in that poem. I, however, remember noticing in the Charleston _Courier_, in 1863, or 1864, a 'Parodie' (as Mr. L. F. had it) on Mrs. Norton's _Bingen on the Rhine_, which was positively the poorest affair I ever saw. Mr. Fontaine had just come out of a Federal prison, and some irresponsible editor, in speaking of this 'Parodie' remarked that the poet's Pegasus had probably worn his wings out against the walls of his Northern dungeon.

"You probably know me well enough to acquit me, in this instance at least, of the charge of prejudice. I am jealous of Southern literature, and if I have any partiality in the matter at all, it is in favor of Major Lamar Fontaine's claim. I should like to claim this poem for that gentleman; I should be glad to claim it as a specimen of Southern literature, but the facts in the case do not warrant it."

Mr. Alfred H. Guernsey, for many years editor of _Harper's Magazine_, bears testimony that the poem, bearing the title _The Picket Guard_, appeared in _Harper's Weekly_ for November 30, 1861. He further declares that it was furnished by Mrs. Ethel Lynn Beers, whom he describes as "a lady whom I think incapable of palming off as her own any production of another."

Mrs. Beers was born in Goshen, New York, and her maiden name was Ethelinda Eliot. She was a direct descendant of John Eliot, the heroic apostle to the Indians. When she began to write for the newspapers she signed her contributions "Ethel Lynn," a _nom de plume_ very naturally suggested by her Christian name. After her marriage, she added her husband's name, and over the signature of Ethel Lynn Beers published many poems. In her later years Mrs. Beers resided in Orange, New Jersey, where she died October 10, 1879, on the very day on which her poems, among them _All Quiet Along the Potomac_, were issued in book form.

There has never been any contest as to the music of the song, which was composed by J. Dayton, the leader of the band of the First Connecticut Artillery.

_THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME._

Way down upon de Suwanee ribber,
Far, far away,
Dere's wha my heart is turning ebber,
Dere's wha de old folks stay.
All up and down de whole creation,
Sadly I roam,
Still longin' for de old plantation,
And for de old folks at home.
All de world am sad and dreary,
Eb'rywhere I roam.
Oh! darkies, how my heart grows weary,
Far from de old folks at home.

All round de little farm I wander'd
When I was young,
Den many happy days I squander'd,
Many de songs I sung.
When I was playin' wid my brudder,
Happy was I,
Oh! take me to my kind old mudder,
Dere let me live and die.

One little hut among de bushes,
One dat I love,
Still sadly to my mem'ry rushes,
No matter where I rove.
When will I see de bees a-humming
All round de comb?
When will I hear de banjo tumming
Down in my good old home?

--_Stephen Collins Foster._

Stephen Collins Foster has a very tender place in the hearts of the American people. His songs are marked by a tenderness and pathos which goes straight to the fountain of tears. Foster was born on the 4th of July, 1826, at Lawrenceburg, Pennsylvania. His native town was founded by his father, but was many years ago merged into the city of Pittsburg.

Young Foster had good opportunities for education in an academy at Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and afterward at Jefferson College. He had a genius for music almost from his birth; while yet but a baby he could wake sweet harmonies from any musical instrument he touched. At the age of seven he had mastered the flageolet without a teacher, and had already become quite proficient on the piano and the flute. He had a clear though not a very strong voice, but one that was under perfect control. As a lad he wrote his first composition, a waltz, which was rendered at a school commencement. The composition, coming from so young a boy, attracted a good deal of attention. His talent for music was so marked that he became the leader throughout his school days of all musical affairs among the students, and he was the center of every serenading party or concert. To compose the words and music of a song was his chief delight. He wrote the words first, and then hummed them over and over till he found notes that would express them properly. While he was in the academy a minstrel troupe came to town and he attended their performance. He succeeded in having one of his songs introduced into their program the next night, which greatly pleased the local public. This was _Oh, Susanna_, which was afterward published in 1842, and immediately gained great popularity. This aroused his musical enthusiasm, and he offered still other songs to publishers, and finally determined to devote himself to musical composition for a livelihood. He attended all the negro camp meetings he could reach, listened to the songs of colored people, gathering new ideas, and this faithful reproduction of what was up to that time an undiscovered mine of musical possibilities, was the secret of his great success as a writer of negro melodies.

Foster had a deeply poetic soul, and would go into the wildest ecstasy over a pretty melody or a bit of rich harmony. There is a certain vein of tender retrospect in nearly all his songs. Take _Old Dog Tray_, of which a hundred and twenty-five thousand copies were sold the first eighteen months after publication. There is something exceedingly tender about it:--

"The morn of life is past, and ev'ning comes at last,
It brings me a dream of a once happy day,
Of merry forms I've seen upon the village green,
Sporting with my old dog Tray.
Old dog Tray's ever faithful,
Grief cannot drive him away,
He's gentle, he is kind; I'll never, never find
A better friend than Old Dog Tray!"

How often we say one to another, "It is good to be missed." But no one has ever voiced that universal feeling of the heart as perfectly as has Foster in his popular song, _Do They Miss Me at Home?_

"Do they miss me at home, do they miss me?
'Twould be an assurance most dear,
To know that this moment some lov'd one
Were saying, 'I wish he were here';
To feel that the group at the fireside
Were thinking of me as I roam;
Oh, yes, 'twould be joy beyond measure
To know that they miss me at home."

"_Still longin' for de old plantation,
And for de old folks at home_"
]

Foster was a most prolific writer, producing between two and three hundred popular songs, furnishing both the words and the music. Among his best known war songs are _We've a Million in the_ _Field_, _Stand by the Flag_, _For the Dear Old Flag I Die_, and _Was my Brother in the Battle?_ His most famous song, however, and one which he hoped would rival _Home, Sweet Home_,--a song of which the soldiers amid the loneliness and homesickness of camp never grew weary--was _The Old Folks at Home_. For the time it has been before the public, it is probably the best known song in the world. Four hundred thousand copies of it were sold the first few years after it was written. The tune has crossed all oceans and become a favorite with martial bands of music in every region of the earth.

The author of this sweet old melody that touches the heart of all peoples closed his life in great sorrow and poverty. In the days of his youth and early manhood he was greatly beloved by all who knew him. He had multitudes of friends and in character was modest, unassuming, and almost as shy as a girl. He was happily married in 1854, in Pittsburg, but the bright prospects which he then had of a happy home life were eclipsed through his yielding to the appetite for strong drink. In 1860 his dissipation separated him from his family, and he settled in New York City, where for awhile he kept an old down-town grocery on the corner of Hester and Christy Streets. Some of his most famous songs were composed in the back room of that old grocery on pieces of brown wrapping-paper. Many of these songs that under the impelling force of his appetite for drink were sold for a few dollars, often brought hundreds and even thousands of dollars to the purchasers.

On the 12th of January, 1864, he was injured by a fall, and died on the following day in Bellevue Hospital, friendless, and in abject poverty. This brilliant man whose melodies were sung by hundreds and thousands of tongues, and to whom a single publisher had paid more than twenty thousand dollars of royalties on his music, died lonely in a great city, and his body was carried back to his native State through the charity of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. His funeral, however, was attended by an immense concourse of people, comprising both the rich and poor of Pittsburg who remembered his brighter days, and who felt that the city was honored by his genius. Musicians attended in large force, and the songs they sang above his grave were his own melodies.

_THE BLUE AND THE GRAY._

By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the one the Blue;
Under the other the Gray.

These, in the robings of glory;
Those, in the gloom of defeat;
All, with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the laurel, the Blue;
Under the willow, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers
Alike for the friend and foe;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the roses, the Blue;
Under the lilies, the Gray.

So, with an equal splendor,
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Broidered with gold, the Blue;
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

So when the summer calleth
On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Wet with the rain, the Blue;
Wet with the rain, the Gray.

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done;
In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.

No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever,
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew
Waiting the judgment day;
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.

--_Francis Miles Finch._

Francis Miles Finch, the author of _The Blue and the Gray_, was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1827. He graduated with honor from Yale College in 1845 in his eighteenth year. He studied law and became a practicing lawyer of fine reputation at Ithaca, being elected an associate judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York in 1881. In July, 1853, he read a poem at the centennial celebration of the Linonian Society of Yale, in which several lyrics were introduced, including one on Nathan Hale, the patriot spy of the Revolution. This at once achieved wide popularity. His one poem, however, which will carry his name down to the future is _The Blue and the Gray_.

Two years after the war of the Rebellion there appeared in the New York _Tribune_, the following item: "The women of Columbus, Mississippi, animated by nobler sentiments than many of their sisters, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers." This, coming at a time when a great deal of the soreness of defeat and the bitterness aroused by the war still remained, seemed to be the first indication of an era of more kindly feeling and a more generous Christian spirit.

The eye of a poet is always seeing the poetic possibilities in current incidents, and when Mr. Finch saw this news item in his favorite daily paper, he not only saw the romance and pathos of the situation, but thought that such an exhibition of generosity should be at once met and welcomed in the same temper. It was out of that impulse that _The Blue and the Gray_ grew into being. Mr. Finch sent it to the _Atlantic Monthly_, where it was published in the September number of 1867, prefaced with the news extract from the _Tribune_ which had suggested it. The poem at once aroused marked attention and became popular throughout the entire country, but especially so in the South.