Immortal Songs of Camp and Field

Shouting the battle cry of Freedom!

    – George F. Root.
This inspiring rallying song was written by George F. Root, to whom we are indebted for so many songs of camp and field. Mr. Root also composed the music. Perhaps no hymn of battle in America has been sung under so many interesting circumstances as this. It was written in 1861, on President Lincoln’s second call for troops, and was first sung at a popular meeting in Chicago and next at a great mass meeting in Union Square, New York, where those famous singers, the Hutchinson Family, sounded it forth like a trump of jubilee to the ears of thousands of loyal listeners.

It was always a great favorite with the soldiers. Dr. Jesse Bowman Young, of St. Louis, the author of What a Boy Saw in the Army, relates a very affecting and pathetic incident which occurred while a portion of the Army of the Potomac was marching across Maryland. A young officer and his company were in the lead, and just behind them came one of the regimental bands, while ahead of them rode General Humphreys and his staff. As the division marched along, they passed by a country schoolhouse in a little grove at a crossroad. The teacher, hearing the music of the band at a distance, and expecting the arrival of the troops, had dismissed the school to give them a sight of the soldiers. Before the troops came in sight the boys and girls had gathered bunches of wild flowers, platted garlands of leaves, and secured several tiny flags, and as General Humphreys rode up in front of the schoolhouse, a little girl came forth and presented him with a bouquet, which he acknowledged with gracious courtesy. Then the group of assembled pupils began to sing, as they waved their flags and garlands in the air. That song made a tumult in every soldier’s heart. Many strong men wept as they looked on the scene and thought of their own loved ones far away in their Northern homes, and were inspired with newborn courage and patriotism by the sight and the song. This is the chorus which rang forth that day from the country schoolhouse, and which soon afterward echoed through the battle in many a soldier’s ear and heart, miles away, on the bloody field of Gettysburg: —

“The Union forever, hurrah! boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitor, up with the star,
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom!”

The first company that passed responded to their captain with a will as he shouted, “Boys, give them three cheers and a tiger!” and the example was imitated by the regiments that followed; so that amid the singing of the children and the cheers of the soldiers, and the beating of the drums, the occasion was made memorable to all concerned.

Richard Wentworth Browne relates that a day or two after Lee’s surrender in April, 1865, he visited Richmond, in company with some other Union officers. After a day of sight-seeing, the party adjourned to Mr. Browne’s rooms for dinner. After dinner one of the officers who played well opened the piano, saying, “Boys, we have our old quartette here, let’s have a song.” As the house opposite was occupied by paroled Confederate officers, no patriotic songs were sung. Soon the lady of the house handed Mr. Browne this note: “Compliments of General – and staff. Will the gentlemen kindly allow us to come over and hear them sing?” Consent was readily given and they came. As the General entered the room, the Union officers recognized instantly the face and figure of an officer who had stood very high in the Confederacy. After introductions, and the usual interchange of civilities, the quartette sang for them glees and college songs, until at last the General said, “Excuse me, gentlemen, you sing delightfully, but what we want to hear is your army songs.” Then they gave them the army songs with unction: The Battle Hymn of the Republic; John Brown’s Body; We’re coming, Father Abraham; Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching; and so on through the whole catalogue to the Star-Spangled Banner, – to which the Confederate feet beat time as if they had never stepped to any but the music of the Union, – and closed their concert with Root’s inspiring Battle Cry of Freedom.

When the applause had subsided, a tall, fine-looking young fellow in a major’s uniform exclaimed, “Gentlemen, if we’d had your songs we’d have licked you out of your boots! Who couldn’t have marched or fought with such songs? while we had nothing, absolutely nothing, except a bastard Marseillaise, The Bonny Blue Flag, and Dixie, which were nothing but jigs. Maryland, my Maryland was a splendid song, but the tune, old Lauriger Horatius, was about as inspiring as the Dead March in Saul, while every one of these Yankee songs is full of marching and fighting spirit.”

Then turning to the General he said, “I shall never forget the first time I heard that chorus, ‘Rally round the Flag.’ It was a nasty night during the Seven Days’ fight, and if I remember rightly, it was raining. I was on picket, when just before ‘taps’ some fellow on the other side struck up The Battle Cry of Freedom and others joined in the chorus until it seemed to me that the whole Yankee army was singing. A comrade who was with me sang out, ‘Good heavens, Cap, what are those fellows made of, anyway? Here we’ve licked them six days running, and now, on the eve of the seventh, they’re singing “Rally round the Flag?”’ I am not naturally superstitious, but I tell you that song sounded to me like the knell of doom; my heart went down into my boots; and though I’ve tried to do my duty, it has been an uphill fight with me ever since that night.”

Perhaps the most romantic and inspiring occasion on which The Battle Cry of Freedom was ever sung was at the raising of the flag over Fort Sumter on the 14th of April, 1865, that being the fourth anniversary of the day when Major Anderson had evacuated the fort after his brave defense. A large number of citizens went from New York in excursion steamers, to assist in the celebration. Colonel Stewart L. Woodford, recently the United States minister to Spain, was master of ceremonies. The oration was delivered by the eloquent Henry Ward Beecher, but the supreme moment of interest came when Major-General Anderson, who had added General to the Major in the past four years, after a touching and tender address, received from Sergeant Hart a bag containing the precious old flag which had waved in the breeze through those days of fierce bombardment, the din of which had been heard around the world. The flag had been saved for such a time as this, and now, by order of Abraham Lincoln, it was brought back to wave again over Fort Sumter. It was attached to the halyards, and General Anderson hoisted it to the head of the flagstaff amid loud huzzas. One can imagine the inspiration of the occasion, as William B. Bradbury led the singing of The Battle Cry of Freedom. How the tears ran down the cheeks, and hearts overflowed with thanksgiving as they shouted the chorus underneath the folds of the very flag that had received the first baptism of fire at the beginning of the Rebellion: —

“The Union forever, hurrah! boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitor, up with the star,
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom!”

SONG OF A THOUSAND YEARS

Lift up your eyes, desponding freemen!
Fling to the winds your needless fears!
He who unfurl’d your beauteous banner,
Says it shall wave a thousand years!
“A thousand years!” my own Columbia,
’Tis the glad day so long foretold!
’Tis the glad morn whose early twilight,
Washington saw in times of old.

What if the clouds, one little moment,
Hide the blue sky where morn appears —
When the bright sun, that tints them crimson,
Rises to shine a thousand years?

Tell the great world these blessed tidings!
Yes, and be sure the bondman hears;
Tell the oppressed of every nation,
Jubilee lasts a thousand years!

Envious foes, beyond the ocean!
Little we heed your threat’ning sneers;
Little will they – our children’s children —
When you are gone a thousand years.

Rebels at home! go hide your faces —
Weep for your crimes with bitter tears;
You could not bind the blessed daylight,
Though you should strive a thousand years.

Back to your dens, ye secret traitors!
Down to your own degraded spheres!
Ere the first blaze of dazzling sunshine,
Shortens your lives a thousand years.

Haste thee along, thou glorious noonday!
Oh, for the eyes of ancient seers!
Oh, for the faith of him who reckons
Each of his days a thousand years!

    – Henry Clay Work.
Henry Clay Work was born in Middletown, Connecticut, October 1, 1832. The family came originally from Scotland, and the name is thought to have come from a castle, “Auld Wark, upon the Tweed,” famed in the border wars in the times made immortal by Sir Walter Scott. He inherited his love of liberty and hatred of slavery from his father, who suffered much for conscience’ sake. While quite young, his family moved to Illinois, near Quincy, and he passed his boyhood in the most abject poverty, his father having been taken from home and imprisoned because of his strong anti-slavery views and active work in the struggles of those enthusiastic and devoted reformers. In 1845, Henry’s father was pardoned on condition that he would leave the State of Illinois. The family then returned to Connecticut. After a few months’ attendance at school in Middletown, our future song writer was apprenticed to Elisha Geer, of Hartford, to learn the printer’s trade. He learned to write over the printer’s case in much the same way as did Benjamin Franklin. He never had any music lessons except a short term of instruction in a church singing school. The poetic temperament, and his musical gifts as well, were his inheritance. He began writing very early, and many of his unambitious little poems found their way into the newspapers during his apprenticeship.

Work’s first song was written in Hartford and entitled, We’re coming, Sister Mary. He sold this song to George Christie, of Christie’s minstrels, and it made a decided hit. In 1855 he removed to Chicago, where he continued his trade as a printer. The following year he married Miss Sarah Parker, of Hubbardston, Massachusetts, and settled at Hyde Park. In 1860 he wrote Lost on the “Lady Elgin,” a song commemorating the terrible disaster to a Lake Michigan steamer, which became widely known.

Kingdom Coming was Work’s first war song, and was written in 1861. Now that it has been so successful, it seems strange that he should have had trouble to find a publisher for it; yet such was the case. But its success was immediate as soon as published. It is perhaps the most popular of all the darkey songs which deal directly with the question of the freedom of the slaves. It set the whole world laughing, but there was about it a vein of political wisdom as well as of poetic justice that commended it to strong men. The music is full of life and is as popular as the words. It became the song of the newsboys of the home towns and cities as well as of the soldiers in the camp and on the march. It portrays the practical situation on the Southern plantation as perhaps no other poem brought out by the war: —

“Say, darkies, hab you seen de massa,
Wid de muffstash on his face,
Go long de road some time dis mornin’,
Like he gwine to leab de place?
He seen a smoke way up de ribber,
Whar de Linkum gunboats lay;
He took his hat, an’ lef’ bery sudden,
An’ I spec he’s run away!
De massa run? ha, ha!
De darkey stay? ho, ho!
It mus’ be now de kingdom comin’,
And de year ob jubilo!

“He’s six feet one way, two foot tudder,
An’ he weigh tree hundred poun’,
His coat’s so big he couldn’t pay de tailor,
An’ it won’t go half way roun’.
He drill so much dey call him cap’an,
An’ he get so drefful tann’d,
I spec he try an’ fool dem Yankees
For to t’ink he’s contraband.

“De darkies feel so lonesome
Libing in de log house on de lawn,
Dey moved dar tings to massa’s parlor,