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“I have often been utterly astonished...”
Frederick Douglass (1845)
I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to
the north, to find persons who could speak of the
singing, among slaves, as evidence of their
contentment and happiness. It is impossible to
conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when
they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave
represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved
by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its
tears. At least, such is my experience.
SOURCE: Frederick Douglass: NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE.
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. (1845)
http://ia600302.us.archive.org/30/items/narrativeoftheli00023gut/23-h/23-h.htm
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The Hardtacks present: THE CIVIL WAR IN FOLK SONG ~ www.CivilWarFolkMusic.com ~
The Glory-Beaming Banjo!
Mark Twain
San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle, 23 June 1865
The piano may do for love-sick girls who lace
themsleves to skeletons, and lunch on chalk, pickles and
slate pencils. But give me the banjo. …
When you want genuine music -- music that will come
right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system
like strychnine whisky, go right through you like
Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the
measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather
pimples on a picked goose, -- when you want all this, just
smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!
SOURCE : Mark Twain in the San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle … http://www.twainquotes.com/Chronicle/18650623.html
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The Hardtacks present: THE CIVIL WAR IN FOLK SONG ~ www.CivilWarFolkMusic.com ~
“They took all”
Harriet Ann Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Written by Herself (1861)
O, you happy free women, contrast your New Year's day
with that of the poor bond-woman! With you it is a
pleasant season, and the light of the day is blessed.
Friendly wishes meet you every where, and gifts are
showered upon you. ...
But to the slave mother New Year's day comes laden
with peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor,
watching the children who may all be torn from her the
next morning; and often does she wish that she and they
might die before the day dawns. She may be an ignorant
creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her
from childhood; but she has a mother's instincts, and is
capable of feeling a mother's agonies.
On one of these sale days, I saw a mother lead seven
children to the auction-block. She knew that some of
them would be taken from her; but they took all. …
Instances of this kind are of daily, yea, of hourly
occurrence.
SOURCE: Harriet Ann Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written by Herself (1861)
( http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/jacobs/jacobs.html )
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Harriet Ann Jacobs in 1894.
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We Wait Beneath the Furnace Blast
John Greenleaf Whittier (1861)
WE wait beneath the furnace-blast
The pangs of transformation;
Not painlessly doth God recast
And mould anew the nation.
Hot burns the fire
Where wrongs expire;
Nor spares the hand
That from the land
Uproots the ancient evil.
The hand-breadth cloud the sages
feared
Its bloody rain is dropping;
The poison plant the fathers spared
All else is overtopping.
East, West, South, North,
It curses the earth;
All justice dies,
And fraud and lies
Live only in its shadow.
What gives the wheat-field blades of steel?
What points the rebel cannon?
What sets the roaring rabble's heel
On the old star-spangled pennon?
What breaks the oath
Of the men o' the South?
What wets the knife
For the Union's life? —
Hark to the answer: Slavery!
Then waste no blows on lesser foes
In strife unworthy freemen.
God lifts to-day the veil, and shows
The features of the demon!
O North and South,
Its victims both,
Can ye not cry,
"Let slavery die!"
And union find in freedom?
SOURCE: Antislavery Poems in Wartime ~ http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/amverse/BAE0044.0001.001/1:4.64.4?rgn=div3;view=fulltext
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“One of the best tunes I have ever heard...”
Abraham Lincoln (April 10, 1865)
I see you have a band of music with you. [Voices, `We
have two or three.'] I propose closing up this interview by
the band performing a particular tune which I will name.
Before this is done, however, I wish to mention one or
two little circumstances connected with it. I have always
thought `Dixie' one of the best tunes I have ever heard.
Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it,
but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it.
[Applause.] I presented the question to the Attorney
General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our
lawful prize. [Laughter and applause.] I now request the
band to favor me with its performance.
SOURCE: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln ~ http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln8/1:840?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
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The Hardtacks present: THE CIVIL WAR IN FOLK SONG ~ www.CivilWarFolkMusic.com ~
Holiday Soldiers
Stow Town Meeting Minutes (October 22, 1861)
The sudden call "to arms" from a state of profound peace
found the State of Massachusetts unable to properly clothe and
equip the men who willing to march at a moment's notice to
the defense of the National Capitol without aid from the towns
where the volunteers belonged.
A number of our citizens belonged to the State Militia and
expected to be called to march at any moment; … Twenty
eight persons offered themselves as volunteers and uniforms
were provided for them; the committee bought the cloth and
coats were made in Boston and the ladies met at the Town Hall
and made 72 woolen shirts and 28 pairs of pants. ...
When the uniforms were distributed it was stated that if
for any reason any person receiving one should not go to the
war he should return his uniform for the benefit of the town.
The following men did not go and when called upon by
the committee, refused to give them up: Eli Willis, F. D.
Hosmer, Walter Yont, Charles A. Sears, Ebenezer L. Blood,
Eliphalet Sears, and James O'Brien and we have been
continually annoyed by some of these holiday soldiers
wearing these uniforms about our streets since their return
from the Fort.
SOURCE: Stow MA Historical Society
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