Emerging Civil War

Today, we bring you the second part of Lance Herdegen’s two-part piece about the music of the Iron Brigade, which was not only one of the most famous fighting units in the Army of the Potomac but whose members also happened to have a particular ear for music. “Any veteran memory of the long marching columns evoked faint echoes of the soldiers singing or the tooting of the brass bands,” Lance wrote in part one.

During the long march or short, said Loyd Grayson Harris, an officer with the 6th Wisconsin, when the bands ceased playing, a chorus of voices would lift from the columns. The Prairie du Chien boys especially liked to sing:

O never mind the weather, but get over double trouble,
For we are bound for the happy land of Canaan.

Then the Juneau County boys, despite “the religious warnings” of pious Rufus Dawes, would add:

My name it is Joe Bower
I have a brother Ike,
I came from old Missouri
Just all the way from Pike.

After several verses of “Joe Bower,” the company would conclude with the sequel where “Sally had a baby, and the baby had red hair.” Continue reading →

We’re pleased today to bring you part one of a two-part piece from guest poster Lance Herdegen, author of The Iron Brigade in Civil War and Memory.

The Iron Brigade in the old Army of the Potomac made its own music. Any veteran memory of the long marching columns evoked faint echoes of the soldiers singing or the tooting of the brass bands. Sometimes it was the stern song about abolitionist John Brown and other times more scandalous airs such the one about an unexpected baby “that had red hair.” The brass bands that played them away from home so long ago performed in the morning formations and evening tattoos as well as during inspections and reviews. The Western men of the Iron Brigade sang as they marched to Gettysburg and the brigade band played “Hail, Columbia” and stirring marches as the Black Hats charged toward Seminary Ridge. In camp, soldiers gathered to sing in groups and even alone. Music was much a part of soldier life those first years of the war and the young men played violins, harmonics, and other instruments for their comrades. “How often on the long weary march,” one officer wrote later, “when it seemed as if our sore and tried limbs almost refused to go on—it was then the full swelling notes from a good band rallied us from the roadside ‘into line,’ flag unfurled, muskets at a right shoulder shift, gleaming in the bright sun, and the regiment appeared infused with new life and energy as they jauntingly marched along.” Continue reading →