Immortal Songs of Camp and Field

For to keep it while he gone.
Dar’s wine and cider in de kitchen,
An’ de darkies dey’ll hab some;
I spose dey’ll all be cornfiscated,
When de Linkum sojers come.

“De oberseer he make us trubbel,
An’ he dribe us round a spell;
We lock him up in de smoke-house cellar,
Wid de key trown in de well.
De whip is lost, de handcuff’s broken,
But de massa’ll hab his pay;
He’s ole enough, big enough, ought to known better,
Den to went an’ run away.”

Another most popular slave song which had a tremendous sale was entitled Wake Nicodemus, the first verse of which is, —

“Nicodemus, the slave, was of African birth,
And was bought for a bagful of gold;
He was reckon’d as part of the salt of the earth,
But he died years ago, very old.
’Twas his last sad request – so we laid him away
In the trunk of an old hollow tree.
‘Wake me up!’ was his charge, ‘at the first break of day —
Wake me up for the great jubilee!’
The Good Time Coming is almost here!
It was long, long, long on the way!
Now run and tell Elijah to hurry up Pomp,
And meet us at the gumtree down in the swamp,
To wake Nicodemus to-day.”

While Marching through Georgia is, without doubt, Mr. Work’s most renowned war song, his Song of a Thousand Years has about it a rise and swell, and a sublimity both in expression and melody, that surpasses anything else that he has written. The chorus is peculiarly fine both in words and music.

Work’s songs brought him a considerable fortune. After the close of the war he made an extended tour through Europe, and while on the sea wrote a song which became very famous, entitled The Ship that Never Returned. During the later years of his life he wrote Come Home, Father, and King Bibbler’s Army– both famous temperance songs.

After his return from Europe, Work invested his fortune in a fruit-growing enterprise in Vineland, New Jersey. He was also a somewhat remarkable inventor, and a patented knitting machine, a walking doll, and a rotary engine are among his numerous achievements. These years were saddened by financial and domestic misfortunes. His wife became insane, and died in an asylum in 1883. He survived her only a year, dying suddenly of heart disease on June 8, 1884, at Hartford, Connecticut. His ashes rest in Spring Grove Cemetery in that city, and on Decoration Day the Grand Army of the Republic never fail to strew flowers on the grave of the singer whose words and melodies led many an army to deeds of heroism. May a grateful people keep his memory green, and cause his grave to blossom for “A Thousand Years!”

TENTING ON THE OLD CAMP GROUND

We’re tenting to-night on the old camp ground;
Give us a song to cheer
Our weary hearts, a song of home,
And friends we love so dear.
Many are the hearts that are weary to-night,
Wishing for the war to cease,
Many are the hearts, looking for the right,
To see the dawn of peace.
Tenting to-night, tenting to-night,
Tenting on the old camp ground.

We’ve been tenting to-night on the old camp ground,
Thinking of days gone by,
Of the loved ones at home, that gave us the hand,
And the tear that said “Good-bye!”

We are tired of war on the old camp ground,
Many are dead and gone,
Of the brave and true who’ve left their homes
Others been wounded long.

We’ve been fighting to-day on the old camp ground,
Many are lying near;
Some are dead, and some are dying,
Many are in tears.

    – Walter Kittredge.
Walter Kittredge was born in Merrimac, New Hampshire, October 8, 1832. His father was a farmer, and though New Hampshire farms are proverbial for their stony hillsides, they were fertile for the production of large families in those days, and Walter was the tenth of eleven children. His education was received at the village school. Like most other writers of war songs, Kittredge had an ear for music from the very first. All of his knowledge of music, however, he picked up for himself, as he never had an opportunity of attending music schools, or being under a teacher. He writes: “My father bought one of the first seraphines [a species of melodeon] made in Concord, New Hampshire, and well do I remember when the man came to put it up. To hear him play a simple melody was a rich treat, and this event was an important epoch in my child life.”

Tenting on the Old Camp Ground, more than any other of our American war songs, had in it the heart experience of the man who wrote it. In 1863 Kittredge was drafted into the army. That night he went to bed the prey of many conflicting emotions. He was loyal to the heart’s core, but was full of grief at the thought of leaving his home, and his rather poetic and timid nature revolted against war. In the middle of the night he awoke from a troubled sleep with the burden of dread still on his mind. In the solemnity and stillness of the night the sad and pathetic fancies of the battle field filled his thought. He reflected on how many of the dear boys had already gone over to the unseen shore, killed in battle, or dead from disease in the camps. He thought of the unknown graves, of the sorrowful homes; of the weary waiting for the end of the cruel strife, of the trials and hardships of the tented field where the brave soldier boys waited for the coming battle, which might be their last. Suddenly these reflections began to take form in his mind. He arose and began to write. The first verse reveals his purpose not only to give cheer to others, but to comfort his own heart: —

“We’re tenting to-night on the old camp ground;
Give us a song to cheer
Our weary hearts, a song of home!
And friends we loved so dear.”

That verse was like a prayer to God for comfort and the prayer was heard and answered.

Being a musician, a tune for the song easily came to Kittredge’s mind, and after copying both words and music he went at once to Lynn, Massachusetts, to visit his friend, Asa Hutchinson, one of the famous Hutchinson family, who then lived at Bird’s Nest Cottage, at High Rock. After they had looked it over together, they called in John Hutchinson, who still lives, the “last of the Hutchinsons,” to sing the solo. Asa Hutchinson sang the bass, and the children joined in the chorus. Kittredge at once made a contract with Asa Hutchinson to properly arrange and publish the song for one-half the profits.

The Hutchinson family were just then giving a series of torchlight concerts on the crest of old High Rock, with the tickets at the exceedingly popular price of five cents. The people from all the towns about turned out en masse. They had half a dozen or more ticket sellers and takers stationed at the various approaches to the rock. During the day they would wind balls of old cloth and soak them in oil. These, placed in pans on the top of posts at intervals, would burn quite steadily for an hour or more, and boys stood ready to replace them when they burned out. The audience gathered in thousands every night during this remarkable series of concerts, and on the very night of the day Kittredge had brought his new hymn, Tenting on the Old Camp Ground was sung for the first time from the crest of High Rock.

Like so many other afterward famous songs, it was hard to find a publisher at first, but the immense popularity which sprang up from the singing of the hymn about Boston soon led a Boston publisher to hire some one to write another song with a similar title, and a few weeks later the veteran music publisher, Ditson, brought out the original. Its sale reached many hundreds of thousands of copies during the war, and since then it has retained its popularity perhaps as completely as any of our war lyrics. It has been specially popular at reunions of soldiers, and every Grand Army assembly calls for it. Many a time I have seen the old veteran wiping away the tears as he listened to the singing of the second verse: —

“We’ve been tenting to-night on the old camp ground,
Thinking of days gone by,
Of the loved ones at home, that gave us the hand,
And the tear that said ‘Good-bye.’”

THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I have read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.