“Composed for a group of overland emigrants, who left Massachusetts, in the spring of 1849.”
Category: songs
Roll, Alabama, Roll (1864)
Recounting the final battle of the most famous Confederate privateer…
Tenting on the Old Camp-Ground (Parody)
“We’re drinking tonight in the old bar-room,
Give us a glass to cheer…”
Tenting on the Old Camp Ground (Kittredge, 1863)
“He thought of the many dear boys already gone over to the unseen shore …”
Maryland, My Maryland (Randall, 1861)
“She meets her sisters on the plain-
‘SIC SEMPER!’ ’tis the proud refrain…”
Dixie’s Land No. 5 (“Come, patriots all who hate oppression…”)
This LOC.gov songsheet shows us how Union partisans re-purposed Emmett’s 1859 minstrel walkaround: The opening lines establish reasons for
Walk in the Parlor (1850s)
Note especially the connections delineated between slavery, land, and knowledge…
I’m Off for California (1850s?)
Here’s a song you’ll recognize, and yet… it’s a side of the Gold Rush story you might not have heard about in school: The melody is Stephen Foster‘s first big hit, “Oh Susannah” (1847), ubiquitous in its time and still common in the “folk song” tradition over a century and a half later. Foster’s original composition features two world-changing technologies…
Picayune Butler’s Come to Town (Rice, 1858)
“And when he made his appearance you should have heard the reception he got. I thought the roof would fall off…”: Picayune Butler takes New York & Tokyo by storm.
Star-Spangled Banner (Key, 1814)
What’s the connection between the US National Anthem, militant slave uprisings, and the burning of the White House?
I’m Off for Nicaragua (Rice, 1858)
Phil Rice gives us this striking vision of slavery carried south in the service of the Filibuster president, General William Walker:
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852-1859?)
“Euclid… is no child for effecting social revolutions, but an impassioned song may set a world in conflagration.” ~ The London Times (3 September 1852)
The Hardtacks 