Chapter II: Part 2

There was an immense amount of song-writing as well as of song-singing during the war, and under the stress of excitement and the gathering together of immense bodies of young and exuberant spirits the enthusiasm inevitably found a vent through the lungs. The illiterate poets were as busy as those of higher education; and those who did not seek their public through the pages of the fashionable magazine, or even the poet's corner of the country newspaper, but through the badly printed sheet of the penny street ballad, or through the mouth of the negro minstrel, contributed almost as largely to the poetry of the war as their brothers. Dime song-books containing a curious admixture of the common and the polite, the appropriate and the incongruous, were innumerable, and the poetry which is below literary criticism was equal in bulk to that which is within its scope. Actual soldiers and sailors also sometimes wrote of their battles and experiences, or expressed their feelings in more or less finished verse, and these found their way into print either in the ballad sheet or the newspaper. Most of those which were good in themselves, from their native force and vigor or from their power as songs, have been preserved, but there is an immense amount of this uncollected and unedited verse which has a very great value as illustrating the sentiments and condition of the people, the waves of popular feeling during various phases of the war, the impressions of notable incidents and the estimates of prominent personages, and which tell, oftentimes more than the leading articles in the newspapers, how the common people were affected by the tremendous struggle. They have the interest, if no other, of the relics of arms and uniforms, and the tokens of the familiar life of a bygone age, and will one day be as valuable to the historian as the ballads of the civil war in England, which have been collected with so much care. In modern times and in civilized societies, the newspaper has taken the place of the street ballad as the record of historical events and the expression of political feeling, and Ireland is almost the only country where it now lingers in any quantity and force; but during such times of popular excitement, and the occurrence of great events involving the most intimate interests of the people, as during the civil war, the popular ballads resumed something of their former value as the expressions of popular feeling. It would be a mistake to omit from consideration even those which were provided as a matter of professional business by the minstrels of the popular stage, who reflected the pervading sentiments of the time, and colored their rude comedy and cheap pathos with the thoughts and feelings aroused by the war.

Thousands of these street songs were issued, to have their temporary vogue and disappear. The principal publisher of the penny sheets was H. de Marsan, 34 Chatham Street, New York, and he appears to have had almost a monopoly of the trade. They were printed on coarse paper, with an emblematic border in colors representing the American flag, and with a soldier and sailor under arms. Some of the more successful songs were copyrighted and published with their music, but this appears to have made little difference to the enterprising Chatham Street publisher, for he included almost everything that was singable, old Revolutionary ballads, English naval songs, and some of the more finished American poems of the war, as well as Ethiopian melodies, and ballads obviously of original contribution. It would be interesting to know whether he kept a staff of poets, like Jemmy Catnach of Seven Dials, or whether, as is most probable, he simply took what he could find, and conferred the honors of print, without remuneration, upon voluntary contributors. The most numerous contributors who bear the stamp of originality naturally came from the Irish element in New York, who were familiar with the street ballad at home, and reproduced its form and sentiment for a similar audience. There are dozens of ballads relating to the exploits of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment, an Irish organization in the New York State Guard, of which Michael Corcoran, an ex-member of the Irish constabulary, was colonel, and Thomas Francis Meagher, the Irish revolutionist, and afterward a brigadier-general of volunteers, a captain. The regiment took part in the battle of Bull Run, during which Colonel Corcoran was taken prisoner and carried South. The bards were instantly inspired to sing the praises of the regiment and its commander, and ballads were written exactly reproducing the style and language of the Irish "Come, all yez," as thus:--

Come, all ye Gallant Heroes, along with me combine;

I 'll sing to you a ditty about the Glorious Sixty-Ninth.

They are a band of Brothers, from Ireland they came;

They had a bold Commander, Michael Corcoran was his

name.

In one or two of them there is an improvement on this very primitive verse, gleams of humor and ebullitions of vigorous spirit. A song entitled The Jolly Sixty-Ninth has a rollicking rhythm and rude humor, of which the following is a specimen:--

It happened one fine day,

Down by the rajin say,

Quite convenient to the boilin' Gulf of Mexico,

That some chaps hauled down our flag,

And it through the dust did drag,

Swearin' it should never float on Fort Sumpter, O.

The author of a song entitled Freedom's Guide had a force and vigor which, with a little more polish and form, would have entitled him to a place in polite literature, and the real singable quality, which was, perhaps, of more importance:--

FREEDOM'S GUIDE.

Our country now is great and free,

And this forever it shall be.

We know the way--we know the way.

Though Southern foes may gather here,

We will protect what we hold dear.

We know the way.

Chorus. We know the way--we know the way.

Through Baltimore, hooray.

For our guide is Freedom's banner.

Hooray, hooray.

The way is through Baltimore.

The South shall see that we are true,

And that we know a thing or two.

We know the way--we know the way.

As Yankee boys we are at hand,

Our countless throngs shall fill the land.

We know the way.

From east to west, from south to north,

We 'll send our mighty legions forth.

We know the way--we know the way.

The freedom that our fathers won

Shall be defended by each son.

We know the way.

Then shout, then shout o'er hill and plain,

We will our country's rights maintain.

We know the way--we know the way.

We will always guard it with our might,

And keep steadfast in the right.

We know the way.

Old Jeff has now begun to lag,

He knows that we 'll stand by the flag.

We know the way--we know the way.

With Scott to guide us in the right,

We 'll show them how the Sixty-Ninth can fight.

We know the way.

An organization almost equally popular with the New York ballad singers, in the early days of the war, was the "Fire Zouaves," recruited among the firemen of the metropolis, and which was expected to perform wonderful feats of daring and energy, from the character of its material. Its leader, Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, was killed by the landlord of a hotel in Alexandria, Va., while hauling down the rebel flag from the roof, and his death created a deep sensation from its dramatic character, and from the fact that it was among the earliest in the war. The elegies upon his death were numerous, as well as those in praise of the regiment itself. One of the latter, by Archibald Scott, whose name, contrary to the usual custom, was prefixed to the ballad, had a good deal of rude vigor, of which the following is a specimen:--

Shall ugly plugs of Baltimore,

Who come out with stones and staves,

Get leave our patriots' blood to pour,

And drive our soldiers from their shore?

No, no! by Hell, in flames shall roar

Their city first by York Zouaves!

Another phase of life in the cities, from that of the enthusiasm of the young men in marching to the war and the fervent appeals for enlistment, was that of the feelings of the women whose sons and husbands left their workshops to join the army. The grief was as bitter and the patriotism as sincere among the inmates of the crowded tenement houses and the narrow and barren homes of the families of the workingmen of New York as among their sisters in the farmhouses in the country, whose surroundings better lent themselves to the illumination of poetry, and it cost as much to put down the tin pail of the city laborer as for the farmer to

Lay down the axe, fling by the spade,

and even more in pinching poverty and lack of resource. But the griefs and sacrifices of these women of the city tenement and noisome alley have found no place in the genteel poetry of the war, and have only been expressed in the rude verse of the street ballad. Says one of them:--

It was in the month of April,

As I walked out one day,

I met a woman weeping

As I walked down Broadway.

She was weeping for her Johnny,

Her dear and only son,

Who joined the Northern army

To fight in Washington.

O Johnny! I gave you a schoolin',

I gave you a trade likewise,

And when you joined the Volunteers,

You know't was my advice."

The New York ballad writers were not entirely confined to the English language, the large foreign population furnishing recruits of all nations. There is not, so far as I have seen, any original German song devoted to the Union cause, but The Red, White, and Blue, and other patriotic songs, were published in German text; and of Germanized English songs, most if not all the product of variety theatre performers, there were a great many, including the extremely popular I'm going to fight mit Siegel.

Ven I comes from de Deutsche Countree,

I vorks somedimes at baking.

Den I keeps a lager bier saloon,

And den I goes shoemaking.

But now I vas a sojer man

To save the Yankee eagle,

To Schlauch dem dam Southern folks,

I'm going to fight mit Siegel.

But this was no more representative of German sentiments than the "Whack-row-de-dow" Pats of the stage were of the Irish; and the German soldiers, when they sang in the vernacular, enlivened their foreign patriotism with the songs of the Fatherland. There was at least one French poet who appealed to his countrymen in their own language to rally to the cause of the Union. His production was as follows:--

VENGEONS LA PATRIE.

Hymne Patriotique, Pah Gustave Dime, Ouvrier-Estam

Peur: Air, "Gloire Aux Martyrs Victoriaux."

Appel Aux Armes.

Debout fils de l'Union

Pour venges l'infamie

Faite à la nation,

Pour venger la Patrie,

La Constitution!

A bas Rébellion!

Debout, debout Américains,

Debout les armes à main.

l'outrage.

De Baltimore à Charleston,

De Richmont à Montgomery,

Le grand drapeau de Washington

Partout il fut souillie, flétri,

Du Fort Sumpter vengeons l'outrage

Et en la sol de Virginie

Sachions montrer notre courage

En digne fils de la Patrie.

l'assassinat.

Le Sud in horrible furie

Du Poignard de la Trahison

Perçant le cour de la Patrie,

Proclame à la Secession.

Mais le President héroïque

Et l'Autorité, le Sénat,

Sauront sauver la République

Et cet infâme Assassinat.

le triomphe.

Gloire à ton nom, libre Amérique,

Gloire à tes vaillant défenseurs

Ils sauveront la République,

Terrasseront tes oppresseurs.

Ils volent tous à la victoire,

Pour l'Union des Etats Unis.

Ils reviendront couverts de gloire

Et les traîtres Seront Punis.

The "ouvrier-estampeur" was sufficiently energetic, but his song never became the Franco-American Marseillaise.

As the war dragged its slow length along, demanding greater and greater sacrifices, and with its days of repulse and defeat for the Union armies, the feeling of universal enthusiasm gave way to discouragement, and there were not wanting in New York, among its heterogeneous population, elements of bitterness which culminated in the deadly and shameful outbreak of the draft riots. This feeling manifested itself in the street ballads, not so conspicuously as the previous enthusiasm, but enough to have attracted the attention of those who were watching the signs of popular feeling. "Copperheadism" had its bards as well as loyalty, although they were much fewer in number, and they cannot be omitted in an account of the folksongs of the civil war. A rude jingle entitled Johnny, fill up the Bowl, gave the popular expression to this feeling:--

Abram Lincoln, what yer 'bout?

Hurrah, hurrah.

Stop this war, for it's played out,

Hurrah, hurrah.

Abram Lincoln, what yer 'bout?

Stop this war, for it's played out.

We 'll all drink stone-blind,

Johnny fill up the bowl.

The pages of the dime song-books at this time contained a number of songs in opposition to the draft, expressing hatred to the negro, and a demand for the stoppage of the war, of which the following is an example:--

THE BEAUTIES OF CONSCRIPTION.

And this the "people's sovereignty,

Before a despot humbled,

Lies in the dust 'neath power unjust,

With crown and sceptre crumbled.

Their brows distained--like felons chained

To negroes called "their betters,"

Their whinings drowned in "Old John Brown,"

Poor sovereigns wearing fetters.

Hurrah for the Conscription,

American Conscription!

Well have they cashed old Lincoln's drafts,

Hurrah for the Conscription!

Some think the hideous spectacle

Should move the heart to sadness,

That fetters ought--oh silly thought!--

Sting freemen's hearts to madness.

When has the stock of Plymouth rock

Been melted to compunction?

As for Provos, the wide world knows

That chaining is their function.

Hurrah for the Conscription,

American Conscription,

And for the stock of Plymouth rock,

Whence sprung this new Conscription!

What matter if you 're _sandwiched_ in

A host of sable fellows,

Well flavored men, your kith and kin,

As Abe and Sumner tell us?

Is not the war--this _murder_--for

The negro, _nolens volens?_

For every three now killed of ye

There's just a negro stolen.

And then ye have Conscription,

American Conscription,

Your blood must flow for this, you know.

Hurrah for the Conscription!

The songs written by the soldiers and sailors themselves, descriptive of their engagements, or incidents of camp and march, or expressing their feelings, were not many, either in folk-ballads or finished poetry. Major J. W. De Forrest's powerful verses, In Louisiana, are almost the only specimen of the latter, and there are but few of the ruder ballads. It may have been because the soldiers and sailors were too much occupied, and that the life in camp and on shipboard was not favorable to poetical reverie, although there were many hours on picket or watch which might have been thus employed; but the fact remains that there was more carving of bone rings than of verses, and more singing than writing in the army and navy. There was not an absolute dearth, however, and the soldiers and sailors sometimes told their own stories or expressed their own feelings in verse. One of the best of these was written during the early days of the war by H. Millard, a member of Company A, Seventy-first Regiment, concerning the march from Annapolis to the Junction, and has the genuine flavor of soldiership as well as a fine spirit of _camaraderie_.

It is entitled Only Nine Miles to the Junction:--

The Rhode Island boys were posted along

On the road from Annapolis station,

As the Seventy-first Regiment, one thousand strong,

Went on in defense of the nation.

We'd been marching all day in the sun's scorching ray,

With two biscuits each as a ration,

When we asked Gov. Sprague to show us the way,

And "How many miles to the Junction?"

How many miles--how many miles,

And how many miles to the Junction;

When we asked Gov. Sprague to show us the way,

And "How many miles to the Junction?"

The Rhode Island boys cheered us on out of sight,

After giving the following injunction:

"Just keep up your courage, you 'll come out all right,

For it's only nine miles to the Junction."

They gave us hot coffee, a grasp of the hand,

Which cheered and refreshed our exhaustion;

We reached in six hours the long-promised land,

For't was only nine miles to the Junction.

There were not many attempts to describe the battles in which the soldiers took part, and they were left to the poets, who did not see them, and had to depend, not very successfully, upon their imagination. There was, however, a ballad of the Seven Days' Fight before Richmond, evidently written by a soldier, and of some force and vigor. It begins: --

Away down in old Yirginny many months ago,

McClellan made a movement and made it very slow.

The Rebel Generals found it out and pitched into our rear;

They caught the very devil, for they found old Kearney

there.

In the old Yirginny low-lands, low-lands,

The old Yirginny low-lands, low.

The bard details the fights as though they were a succession of Union victories, and concludes with a defense of General McClellan:--

Now all you politicians, a word I have for you,

Just let our little Mac alone, for he is tried and true;

For you have found out lately that he is our only hope,

For twice he saved the Capitol, likewise McDowell and

Pope.

The enthusiasm aroused by General McClellan among the rank and file of the Army of the Potomac had no counterpart in regard to any other commander, was proof against failure and defeat, and lingered, to a certain extent, even to the close of the war. His removal caused a great deal of indignation, and called out a good many protests and appeals for his restoration. A song, Give us back our old Commander, was a good deal sung at the time:--

Give us back our old Commander,

Little Mac, the people's pride;

Let the army and the nation

In their choice be satisfied.

With McClellan as our leader,

Let us strike the blow anew;

Give us back our old Commander,

He will see the battle through.

Give us back our old Commander,

Let him manage, let him plan;

With McClellan as our leader,

We can wish no better man.

The very rollicking and nonsensical chorus of Bummers, come and meet Us, belongs to this period, and was almost as popular as John Brown's Body, fulfilling amply and simply the conditions for relieving the lungs. Like the sailors' "shanties" and the plantation choruses, it was capable of indefinite extension and improvisation. The following is a specimen of its construction:--

McClellan is our leader, we've had our last retreat,

McClellan is our leader, we've had our last retreat,

McClellan is our leader, we 've had our last retreat,

We 'll now go marching on.

Say, brothers, will you meet us,

Say, brothers, will you meet us,

Say, brothers, will you meet us,

As we go marching on?

*****

The girls we left behind us, boys, our sweethearts in the

North,

The girls we left behind us, boys, our sweethearts in the

North,

The girls we left behind us, boys, our sweethearts in the

North,

Smile on us as we march.

Oh sweethearts, don't forget us,

Oh sweethearts, don't forget us,

Oh sweethearts, don't forget us,

We 'll soon come marching home.

A seaman on board the Vandalia, one of the ships engaged in the capture of Port Royal, wrote a description of the engagement, which has considerable of the light of battle in it. It is entitled:--

THE PORT ROYAL DANCE.

Behold our glorious banner floats gayly in the air,

But four hours hence base traitors swore we could not plant

it there;

But brave Dupont he led us on to fight the vaunting foe,

And soon the rebel standard was in the dust laid low.

Whack row de dow,

How are you, old Port Royal?

Whack row de dow,

How are you, Secesh?

When we were seen advancing they laughed with foolish pride,

And said that soon our Northern fleet they'd sink beneath

the tide;

And with their guns trained carefully they waited our advance,

And the gallant Wabash soon struck up the music of the

dance.

The Susquehanna next in line delivered her broadside,

With deadly aim each shot was sent and well each gun was

plied;

And still our gallant ships advanced, and each one, as she

passed,

Poured in her deadly messengers, and the foe fell thick and

fast.

Each ship advanced in order, each captain wore a smile,

Until the famed Vandalia brought up the rear in style,

And as our guns were shortest we balanced to the right,

And brought us to the enemy the closest in the fight.

Then round the room (Port Royal bay) we took a Highland

Fling,

And showed them in Fort Walker what loud music we could

sing.

And then we poured in our broadsides that brought their

courage low,

And o'er the rebel batteries soon our Union flag did flow.

Three cheers for gallant Haggerty, he led us safely through;

And three for our loved Whiting, he is the real true blue.

Success to every officer who fought with us that day;

Together may we pass unscathed through many a gallant

fray.

A health to every gallant tar who did his duty well,

Peace to the ashes of the dead who nobly fighting fell.

'T was in a glorious cause they died, the Union to maintain.

We who are left, when called upon, will try it o'er again.

Some of the disagreeable features of a soldier's duty and camp life were dealt with by the soldiers in the spirit of humorous exaggeration, which was as much an evidence of high spirits as the enthusiastic choruses. A camp poet thus relieves his feelings in regard to the exercise of "double quick:"--

Since I became a volunteer things have went rather queer;

Some say I'm a three months' man, and others a three years'

volunteer.

With plenty of likes and dislikes to all I have to stick;

There's plenty of pork, salt horse, and plenty of Double

Quick.

Oh, I'm miserable, I'm miserable,

To all I 'll have to stick.

The old salt horse is passable,

But d-n the Double-Quick.

If a friend should call to see you the men have a pretty game.

They call him paymaster, obstacle, or some such kind of a

name.

They chase him around the camp; it's enough to make him

sick

To try and teach him discipline by giving him Double-Quick.

You may feel rather hungry, almost in a starving state,

And you wish to get your dinner first, all ready with your

plate;

There's always others just the same, waiting for the lick;

To be the twentieth one, you must travel Double-:Quick.

Once upon every Sunday to church you must always go,

Your bayonet by your side in case you should meet the foe;

And when the service was ended it was called the moral trick

To drive you back to your camp at a pleasant Double-Quick.

Each day there are just twelve roll-calls to keep you in the

camp;

If off three rods the bugle sounds, back you will have to tramp,

And, if you chance to miss, why, you are a poor, gone chick,--

Fourteen bricks in your knapsack, and four hours Double

Quick.

Now, all you chaps who would enlist, don't leap before you

look,

And, if you wish to fight for the Union, go on your own hook,

For, if a soldier you become, it will be your last kick,

To the devil you will surely be drove headlong Double-Quick.

The Southern poetry of the civil war was even more rhetorical and stilted than that of the North. Its literary culture was more provincial, and its style a great deal more inflated and artificial. It was the "foemen" that they were to meet instead of the enemy, and "gore" instead of blood that was to be shed; and there was a great deal about the "clank of the tyrant's chain," and the "bloodstained sword," and such other fuliginous figures of speech. Sometimes there was a good deal of force behind this sounding rhetoric, as in Henry Timrod's A Call to Arms and in James R. Randall's There's Life in the Old Land yet, but for the most part it had an air of bombast and turgidity, which would have given a false impression in regard to the real spirit of determination among the Southern people, if one had only judged by its inflated expression. The pages of the Southern Amaranth, and other collections of rebel poetry, give the impression of having been written by school-boys, and contain little but sophomoric rhetoric of the most sounding and inflated description. That it had a fiery energy and an invincible determination behind it was abundantly shown, but the voice of the South in its polite literature was one of inflated extravagance. Nevertheless it produced the most manly and vigorous song of the whole war in Dr. J. W. Palmer's Stonewall Jackson's Way; and some verses appeared in a Richmond paper in 1861, entitled Call All, which have a fiery energy and directness unsurpassed, and were in the genuine language of the people:

CALL ALL.

Whoop! the Doodles have broken loose,

Roaring around like the very deuce.

Lice of Egypt, a hungry pack;

After 'em, boys, and drive 'em back,

Bull-dog, terrier, cur, and fice,

Back to the beggarly land of ice.

Worry 'em, bite 'em, scratch and tear

Everybody and everywhere.

Old Kentucky is caved from under;

Tennessee is split asunder,

Alabama awaits attack,

And Georgia bristles up her back.

Old John Brown is dead and gone,

Still his spirit is marching on,--

Lantern-jawed, and legs, my boys,

Long as an ape's from Illinois.

Want a weapon? Gather a brick,

A club or cudgel, a stone or stick,

Anything with a blade or butt,

Anything that can cleave or cut;

Anything heavy, or hard, or keen;

Any sort of slaying machine;

Anything with a willing mind

And the steady arm of a man behind.

Want a weapon? Why, capture one;

Every Doodle has got a gun,

Belt and bayonet, bright and new.

Kill a Doodle and capture two!

Shoulder to shoulder, son and sire,

All, call all! to the feast of fire,

Mother and maiden, child and slave,

A common triumph or a single grave.

The street ballad did not exist in the South, so far as I can discover, and the popular song-books were very few in comparison with those of the North. There were some, however, printed on discolored paper and with worn-out type. Among them were The New Confederate Flag Songster, S. C. Griggs, Mobile; The General Lee Songster, John C. Schreiner & Son, Macon and Savannah; The Jack Morgan Songster, compiled by a captain in General Lee's army; and Songs of Love and Liberty, compiled by a North Carolina lady, Raleigh, 1864. Like the Northern song-books, they contained an admixture of the popular negro melodies with the songs of the war, and there are but few instances of any genuine and native expression. The song which gave the title to The Jack Morgan Songster, however, has a good deal of force and vigor, and was evidently written by the camp fire. It is entitled Three Cheers for our Jack Morgan:--

The snow is in the cloud,

And night is gathering o'er us,

The winds are piping loud,

And fan the flame before us.

Then join the jovial band,

And tune the vocal organ,

And with a will we 'll all join in

Three cheers for our Jack Morgan.

Chorus. Gather round the camp fire,

Our duty has been done,

Let's gather round the camp fire

And have a little fun.

Let's gather round the camp fire,

Our duty has been done,

'T was done upon the battle field,

Three cheers for our Jack Morgan.

Jack Morgan is his name,

The peerless and the lucky;

No dastard foe can tame

The son of old Kentucky.

His heart is with his State,

He fights for Southern freedom;

His men their General's word await,

They 'll follow where he 'll lead 'em.

He swore to free his home,

To burst her chains asunder,

With sound of trump and drum

And loud Confederate thunder.

And in the darksome night,

By light of homesteads burning,

He puts the skulking foe to flight,

Their hearts to wailings turning.

The dungeon, dark and cold,

Could not his body prison,

Nor tame a spirit bold

That o'er reverse had risen.

Then sing the song of joy,

Our toast is lovely woman,

And Morgan he's the gallant boy

To plague the hated foeman.

The tone of the Southern songs was not only a good deal more ferocious and savage than that of those of the North, but there were fewer indications of that spirit of humor which pervaded the Northern camps, and found expression in the soldiers' songs. There is, however, one Southern piece of verse, descriptive of the emotions of the newly drafted conscript, which has an original flavor of comicality, although evidently inspired by the spirit of Yankee Doodle:--

THE VALIANT CONSCRIPT.

How are you, boys? I'm just from camp,

And feel as brave as Cæsar;

The sound of bugle, drum, and fife

Has raised my Ebenezer.

I'm full of fight, odds shot and shell,

I 'll leap into the saddle,

And when the Yankees see me come,

Lord, how they will skedaddle!

Hold up your head, up, Shanghai, Shanks,

Don't shake your knees and blink so,

It is no time to dodge the act;

Brave comrades, don't you think so?

I was a ploughboy in the field,

A gawky, lazy dodger,

When came the conscript officer

And took me for a sodger.

He put a musket in my hand,

And showed me how to fire it;

I marched and countermarched all day;

Lord, how I did admire it!

With corn and hog fat for my food,

And digging, guarding, drilling,

I got as thin as twice-skimmed milk,

And was scarcely worth the killing.

And now I'm used to homely fare,

My skin as tough as leather,

I do guard duty cheerfully

In every kind of weather.

I'm brimful of fight, my boys,

I would not give a "thank ye"

For all the smiles the girls can give

Until I've killed a Yankee.

High private is a glorious rank,

There's wide room for promotion;

I 'll get a corporal's stripes some day,

When fortune's in the notion.

'T is true I have not seen a fight,

Nor have I smelt gunpowder,

But then the way I 'll pepper 'em

Will be a sin to chowder.

A sergeant's stripes I now will sport,

Perhaps be color-bearer,

And then a captain--good for me--

I 'll be a regular tearer.

I'll then begin to wear the stars,

And then the wreaths of glory,

Until the army I command,

And poets sing my story.

Our Congress will pass votes of thanks

To him who rose from zero,

The people in a mass will shout,

Hurrah, behold the hero!

(Fires his gun by accident.)

What's that? oh dear! a boiler's burst,

A gaspipe has exploded,

Maybe the Yankees are hard by

With muskets ready loaded.

On, gallant soldiers, beat'em back,

I 'll join you in the frolic,

But I 've a chill from head to foot,

And symptoms of the colic.

The spirit of the Southern women is well known to have been as vigorous and determined as that of their brothers, and the sacrifices which they were compelled to make were much more severe and general than at the North. They had been dependent upon the North and foreign countries for clothing and the luxuries of the household, and when these sources of supply were cut off by the war and the blockade, they had to make and sew their own homespun dresses, and forego all the delights of fashion and adornment. The sacrifices and devotion of the daughters of the South were sung in turgid rhetoric, like the threats and appeals of the men, but here is a genuine voice, evidently a woman's own, which speaks for her sisters in their homelier trials, as well as in their deeper emotions:--

THE SOUTHERN GIRL'S SONG.

Oh yes, I am a Southern girl,

And glory in the name,

And boast it with far greater pride

Than glittering wealth or fame.

We envy not the Northern girl

With robes of beauty rare,

Though diamonds grace her snowy neck

And péarls bedeck her hair.

Hurrah, hurrah,

For the sunny South so dear.

Three cheers for the homespun dress

That Southern ladies wear!

The homespun dress is plain, I know,

My hat's palmetto, too,

But then it shows what Southern girls

For Southern rights will do.

We have sent the bravest of our land

To battle with the foe,

And we will lend a helping hand;

We love the South, you know.

Now, Northern goods are out of date,

And since old Abe's blockade,

We Southern girls can be content

With goods that's Southern made.

We sent our sweethearts to the war,

But, dear girls, never mind,

Your soldier love will ne'er forget

The girl he left behind.

The soldier is the lad for me,

A brave heart I adore;

And when the sunny South is free,

And when the fight is no more,

I 'll choose me then a lover brave

From out the gallant band;

The soldier lad I love the best

Shall have my heart and hand.

The Southern land's a glorious land,

And has a glorious cause;

Then cheer, three cheers for Southern rights

And for the Southern boys.

We 'll scorn to wear a bit of silk,

A bit of Northern lace;

And make our homespun dresses up,

And wear them with such grace.

And now, young men, a word to you:

If you would win the fair,

Go to the field where honor calls

And win your lady there.

Remember that our brightest smiles

Are for the true and brave,

And that our tears are all for those

Who fill a soldier's grave.

The folk-songs of the civil war, in which millions were engaged and which lasted for four years, do not compare in quality with those which much lighter struggles have produced, notably the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland. The Americans were not a singing people in the bent of their genius, and the conditions of life and civilization were not favorable to this form of expression. The newspaper had taken the place of the ballad as a means of influencing the public mind, and poetry had passed from the people to the literary artists. So when the great crisis of the civil war came, affecting all minds and all hearts, the people were unfamiliar with this mode of expression, and the literary artists had not the power to interpret their feelings except in their own artificial forms without touching the heart or giving vital meaning to the voice. The accident of the combination of genius with this sincerity, which produced La Marseillaise and Der Wacht am Rhein, did not occur, so that the great struggle is without an equally great song embodying and interpreting the spirit of the nation, and whatever fine poems and songs there were distinctly fall below this ideal. But in such a struggle the voice of the people could not fail to find expression by the means which the history of mankind has shown to be the most natural expression of emotion and enthusiasm, and their songs, however imperfect, either as literature or popular poetry, are the most genuine expression of the feelings and thoughts which filled their hearts and minds, and have a genuineness which informs the rude or inadequate words, and are a most important illustration of the history of that tremendous conflict.

ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS.

|Professor Francis James Child's edition of the English and Scottish Popular Ballads, monumental in size, is still more monumental in the labor which it represents. It embodies not only diligent research for the most authentic and original versions of the ancient ballads in all the known sources in print or in manuscript, and the recovery of many from still living traditions in Great Britain and the United States, but a careful study and comparison of the folk-song of kindred European nations and of the world for resemblances in subject and story; thus making a most interesting and valuable addition to the knowledge of the common development of the human intellect in primitive thought and form of expression in diverse countries. How much study this has involved can only be appreciated by those who have seen its results in the concise introductions to each ballad, citing comparisons in every known literature, and yet further work in this direction will be left for later scholars, as the study and collection of folk-song is being pursued with more and more zeal and success in every quarter of the world, under the appreciation of its great literary as well as historical value. Professor Child has been governed by the strictest conscientiousness in giving his version of the popular ballads, not only going to the original sources like the Percy folio, the manuscript materials for The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border preserved at Abbotsford, Motherwell's note books, and other manuscripts and stall copies, but reprinting them with all their omissions and defects, not supplying the most obvious missing word or even letter without indicating it. He has not followed the example of the strictly faithful editors of the ancient ballads like Motherwell in presenting alone the most complete and perfect specimen, nor allowed himself like others, substantially faithful, like Scott and Jamieson, to collate a number of copies derived from different sources into a harmonious whole,-but gives each version distinct in itself, even to a solitary variant verse. It is one of the commonplaces of the history of English and Scottish ballad poetry that most of its collectors and editors from Bishop Percy downward have felt themselves entitled to amend and correct the imperfect fragments to a greater or less degree, supplying missing lines or stanzas to connect or complete the story, and that this has resulted sometimes in the most incongruous patchwork in which the sentiments and poetical fashions of one generation have been foisted upon those of another to the utter destruction of all verisimilitude, to say nothing of strength and genuineness of expression. Bishop Percy, with all his fine taste and genuine poetic power, was a conspicuous sinner in this respect, and patched the rough and strong frieze of the ancient ballads with pieces of the thin and sleazy silk of eighteenth century sentiment and diction. Even Scott, with all his sense of honesty and appreciation of the value of the integrity of the ancient ballads, could not always refrain from his possessing temptation "to give a hat and stick" to the stories which he heard, and, as Professor Child points out, there are some stanzas in the Border Minstrelsy which bear suspiciously his mark, and of which the originals have not been found in his manuscript materials. It is true enough that Scott's additions and emendations, as well as those of Allan Cunningham, who was wholly indifferent to the genuineness and integrity of his originals, were likely to be in the very spirit and turn of expression of the ancient ballads, and that the lover of poetry for its own sake will not be likely to find fault with them, but the real student of folk-song must repudiate them, and can be content only with the genuine expressions of the people, as they lived in tradition, however inchoate and imperfect they may he. The historical and ethnological value of the ancient ballads consists in their absolute genuineness, and even the imperfection of their utterances illustrates the condition of the popular mind and the characteristics of the individual intelligence which produced them, and are important geological evidences of the growth and development of the human intellect. At the same time this very imperfection of speech, and the struggle of primitive thought to express itself in language sometimes creates, as it were by accident, the very flower of strength and vividness in picturesque description, and the interpretation of emotion as the most skillful art has been unable to do. How strong these ballads were, and what a hold they had upon the minds and imaginations of the people, as the interpretation of their innate poetic spirit, is shown in the tenacity with which they have lived, and been reproduced in varying forms through generations down to the present day. Ballads like The Cruel Sister and Lord Thomas and Fair Annet, the production probably of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, have been recovered, with the essential burden of their verse and the subject of their story, from the mouths of English peasants and Irish servant girls, and in the folk-lore of the American nursery, to which they had been transmitted simply by the force of oral tradition, and without any assistance from print; and it is not likely that they will entirely disappear for generations to come, any more than the perennial nursery tales which were created by and appeal to the primitive and childish imagination. These traditional versions have been altered to suit the localities, and weakened in their coherence and vigor of expression from the time when they were the literature of the main body of the people instead of the lowest class, as the stall copies of the ballads of the ancient minstrels, when they were the attendants of kings and nobles and shared the inspiration of chivalry, have been degraded to the level of the intelligence of the audience of the street singers or the gatherings in the taprooms of the village alehouses; but they retain the essential characteristics of simple emotion, inherent melody, and primitive language, and have still something of the fine and penetrating flavor of popular romance.

It is almost needless to say to the student of literature that the art of popular ballad writing is extinct, or is successful only in the rarest instances. Poets of genuine power and inspiration, imbued and saturated with the spirit of the ancient ballads, have attempted to re-create them in the telling of an ancient or modern story, but, whatever their original power or imitative skill, they have failed to reproduce that native strength and peculiar flavor of expression which gives the ancient ballads such a hold upon the mind. The modern ballads are admired by the intellect rather than felt by the heart, and are recognized as the product of skillful art rather than as the expression of original emotion. Even Scott, whose literary genius was so saturated with their spirit, and Wordsworth, who sought his inspiration in the simple emotions of the peasant heart and interpreted them so perfectly in a literary form of glowing simplicity, could not produce a popular ballad, and even Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, with all its powerful and naked mystery and natural archaism of thought and language, appeals to the literary rather than to the popular imagination. All the more absolute imitations of ancient literature, like those of Rossetti and Morris, have still more the air of unreality, in spite of what is oftentimes their very great power and skill, and Sir Samuel Ferguson's Lays of the Western Gael, perfect as they are in the reproduction of the Celtic spirit and expression, are for the admiration of scholars rather than the feeling of the people. It is hardly too much to say that in modern English literature there are but two poems which fulfill the conditions of the ancient ballads in their simplicity, directness, and originality of language, their power upon the mind and heart through the ear, and the indefinable flavor of primitive emotion, and those very different in style, subject, and form of expression. These are Cowper's Loss of the Royal George, and Rudyard Kipling's Danny Deever. Every one who has heard it or read it can repeat,--

Toll for the brave,

The brave that are no more,

Sunk beneath the wave

Fast by their native shore;

and the burden and the measure, the simplicity and strength of diction, of Danny Deever are equally calculated to take a possessing hold upon the ear. These ballads are not imitations derived from study of the ancient popular ballads, but obtaining their inspiration from the same original source in strong and primitive emotion interpreted in the simplest language possible, and speaking through the ear by the chanted rather than through the eye by the printed line. It is this appeal to the ear which is the strongest characteristic of the form of the ancient ballads. They were made to be sung or chanted rather than read, and therefore they have a felicity of sound as an interpreter of meaning which is often perfect in its expression; and when imperfect, that is, when the meaning is not clear, but is only vaguely and dimly attached to the sound, as in the refrains and burdens, there is a flavor or an atmosphere of meaning which pervades it and adds to the effect.

There is a touch of the plaintiveness of natural sounds which no literary art could give in the opening of The Queen of Elphan's Nourrice:--

I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low,

An' a cow low down in yon fauld.

Long, long will my young son greet

Or his mother take him from cauld.

Even when the burden is still more arbitrary, and without any direct reflection of the meaning whatever, it is never felt to be incongruous or artificial, and has a mystic and intensifying effect, as in the painful ballad of The Sheath and Knife:--

He has made a grave that was long and deep,

The broom blooms bonnie, and says it is fair,

And he's buried his sister, with her babe at her feet,

And they 'll never gang down to the broom any mair.

And even when the refrain might be called simply a meaningless chant, it makes a part of the ballad which could not be taken away without a loss of the quality which gives it a living voice, as in the chorus, which sings of itself to The Elfin Knight:

My plaid awa, my plaid awa,

And o'er the hills and far awa,

And far awa to Norowa.

My plaid shall not be blawn awa.

As to these stanzas and lines, which give a perfect marriage of sound and meaning either in the interpretation of emotion or description, and in which the ear is the interpreter of the eye and the heart with a skill which no art could give, they are numberless, and of the very substance of the genius of the old ballad singers. There is nothing in the cultivated skill of trochee and spondee to equal such untaught perfections of the human voice as these:--

O, we were sisters, sisters seven;

We were the fairest under heaven.

(Gil Brenton.)

And a lightsome bugle then heard he blowe,

Over the bents sae browne.

(Sir Cawline.)

It was a sad and rainy night,

As ever rained from town to town.

(Clerk Saunders.)

But't was wind and weet and fire and sleet

When we came to the castle wa.

(Kinmont Willie.)

O, he has ridden o'er field and fell

Through ruins and moss and many a mire,

He spurs a steed that was sair to ride,

And frae her forefeet flew the fire.

(Annan Water.)

And this, in which the very gallop of the horse's feet runs along the lines:--

It's twenty lang miles to Sillerton toun,

The langest that ever were gane,

But the steed it was wight and the lady was light,

And she rade linkin in.

(Prince Robert.)

The element of poetry of the highest kind in these ballads is the strength as well as the simplicity of passion interpreted in language of naked directness and dramatic power. Their stories are mainly those of the bloody tragedies and the violent events and emotions in the lives of a people to whom strife and adventure were an integral part of existence, and whose passions were strong and vigorous, although a proportion of the ballads have an element of rustic humor, and the cycle of those relating to Robin Hood is mainly of this kind. There is an element of the supernatural in the English and Scottish ballads, more particularly in the latter, which, if not so marked and pervading as in those of the Celtic nations, shows that the mysterious terrors of nature were still embodied in the visible forms of the imagination, and that the woods were still haunted by elfin knights, the green braes by fairies, while human beings were still liable to be transformed into laidly worms and foul toads by the enchantment of witches, in at least a pervading shadow of popular belief. But for the most part they were singularly free from the tincture of the marvelous, and mainly the simple chronicles of stirring events or the tragedies of passion. This gives them an element of strength, which is wanting to the phantasmagorial figures of more imaginative nations, whatever glow of misty glory shines about them as in the creations of the early Celtic bards. The impression of the soul of nature is strong but not overpowering as in these latter, and the influence of the landscape and the sky in storm or calm illuminates but does not interfere with the dramatic action. As has been said, strength of thought and strength of language are their prevailing characteristics. Their strength of language is that which belongs to the speech of a people when it is fresh and new, and before it has been overlaid with words created for literary purposes and by the introduction of foreign words to give niceties of meaning, and no cultivated language has the same power and directness as that which is the simple expression of the thoughts of the people. Goethe, with his sound critical insight, noted this when he said, "The unsophisticated man is the more master of direct, effective expression than he who has had a regular training," and a language may often lose in strength what it gains in ornament and flexibility. This strength of expression is written large over all the English and Scottish ballads, and specimens are merely arbitrary and may be taken almost at random:--

Aye she waukened at the dead man,

And aye she waukened him to and fro.

(Clerk Saunders.)

And when she came out of the Kirk,

She shimmered like the sun.

(Lord Thomas and Fair Annet.)

The Lindsays flew like fire about,

Till all the fray was done.

(The Battle of Otterbourne.)

One spak slow, and another whispered out,

She's gone wi' Gipsy Davy.

(The Gipsy Laddy.)

Twice it lifted its bonnie blue ee,

Thae looks gae through the saul o' me.

(The Cruel Mother.)

There was no maen made for that lady,

In bower where she lay dead,

But a' was for the bonnie babe,

That lay blabbering in her bleed.

(Lord Ingram and Child Wyett.)

O, then she stood and better she stood,

And never did shed a tear,

Till once she saw lier seven brethren slain,

And her father she loved sae dear.

(The Douglas Tragedy.)

And when he came to her bower she was pale and wan,

But she grew red and ruddy, when Glenlogie came in.

(Glenlogie.)

The dramatic power of expression, that which illumines it with a touch of action, is not less remarkable than that of direct phraseology:--

"Hold up, hold up, Lord William," she says,

"I fear that you are slain."

"It's nothing but the shadow of my scarlet cloak,

That shines in the water sae plain."

(Earl Brand.)

And aye she served the lang table,

With white bread and with brown,

And aye she turned her round about,

Sae fast the tears fell down.

(Fair Annie.)

She turned her head ou her left shoulder,

Saw her girdle hang on a tree,

O, God bless those that gave me that,

They 'll never give more to me.

(Lary Maissy.)

When I rose up in the morn,

My goodly palace for to lea,

I knocked at my lord's chamber door,

But never a word wad he speak to me.

(Jamie Douglass.)

The King looked over his left shoulder,

And a grim look looked he,

Earl Martial an' 't were na for my oath

Or hanged thou shouldst be.

(Queen Elinor's Confession.)