Immortal Songs of Camp and Field

“He has gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord,
He is sworn as a private in the ranks of the Lord —
He shall stand at Armageddon, with his brave old sword,
When Heaven is marching on.

“He shall file in front where the lines of battle form —
He shall face the front where the squares of battle form —
Time with the column and charge with the storm,
Where men are marching on.

“Ah, foul tyrants! do you hear him where he comes?
Ah, black traitors! do you know him as he comes?
In thunder of the cannon and roll of the drums,
As we go marching on.

“Men may die, and moulder in the dust —
Men may die, and arise again from dust,
Shoulder to shoulder, in the ranks of the just,
When Heaven is marching on.”

But Mr. Brownell has shared the same fate with Miss Proctor, and his song and hers are only curiosities to-day, which show how arbitrary the popular will is when once the heart or the imagination is really captured. Mr. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., writing to Mr. James T. Fields, the famous Boston litterateur, said: “It would have been past belief had we been told that the almost undistinguishable name of John Brown should be whispered among four millions of slaves, and sung wherever the English language is spoken, and incorporated into an anthem to whose solemn cadences men should march to battle by the tens of thousands.”

DIXIE

I wish I was in de land ob cotton,
Old times dar am not forgotten,
Look away! Look away! Look away!
In Dixie Land where I was born in,
Early on a frosty mornin’,
Look away! Look away! Look away!
Den I wish I was in Dixie,
Hooray! Hooray!
In Dixie Land, I’ll take my stand,
To lib and die in Dixie,
Away! Away!
Away down south in Dixie.

Old Missus marry “Will-de-weaber,”
Willium was a gay deceaber;
Look away! Look away! Look away!
But when he put his arm around ’er,
He smiled as fierce as a forty pounder,
Look away! Look away! Look away!

His face was as sharp as a butcher’s cleaber,
But dat did not seem to greab ’er;
Look away! Look away! Look away!
Old Missus acted de foolish part,
And died for a man dat broke her heart.
Look away! Look away! Look away!

Now here’s a health to de next old Missus,
And all de gals dat want to kiss us;
Look away! Look away! Look away!
But if you want to drive ’way sorrow,
Come and hear dis song tomorrow,
Look away! Look away! Look away!

Dar’s buckwheat cakes an’ Injen batter,
Makes you fat or a little fatter;
Look away! Look away! Look away!
Den hoe it down and scratch your grabble,
To Dixie’s Land I’m bound to trabble,
Look away! Look away! Look away!

    – Dan Emmett.
Dan Emmett, who wrote the original Dixie, which has been paraphrased and changed and adapted nearly as frequently as Yankee Doodle was born at Mount Vernon, Ohio, in 1815. He came from a family all of whose members had a local reputation, still traditional in that part of the country, as musicians. In his own case this talent, if given a fair chance for development, would have amounted to genius. He began life as a printer, but soon abandoned his trade to join the band of musicians connected with a circus company. He was not long in discovering that he could compose songs of the kind in use by clowns; one of the most popular of these was Old Dan Tucker. Its success was so great that Emmett followed it with many others. They were all negro melodies, and many of them won great popularity. Finally he took to negro impersonations, singing his own songs in the ring, while he accompanied himself on the banjo. He made a specialty of old men, and he declares with pride that when he had blackened his face, and donned his wig of kinky white hair, he was “the best old negro that ever lived.” He became such a favorite with the patrons of the circus in the South and West, that at last – partly by chance, and partly through intention – he became a full-fledged actor. This was in 1842, at the old Chatham Theater in New York City, when with two companions he gave a mixed performance, made up largely of songs and dances typical of slave life and character. The little troupe was billed as “The Virginia Minstrels,” and their popularity with the public was instantaneous.

This was the beginning of negro minstrelsy, which was destined to have such a wide popularity in America. From New York the pioneer company went to Boston, and later on sailed for England, leaving the newly-discovered field to the host of imitators who were rapidly dividing their success with them. Emmett had great success in the British Isles, and remained abroad for several years. When he returned to New York, he joined the Dan Bryant Minstrel Company, which then held sway in Bryant’s Theater on lower Broadway, which was at that time one of the most popular resorts in New York City. Emmett was engaged to write songs and walk-arounds and take part in the nightly performances. It was while he was with Bryant that Dixie was composed.

Emmett is still living and resides at Mount Vernon, Ohio, where he hopes to end his days. The old man is a picturesque figure on the streets. In his prime he was one of the mid-century dandies of New York City, but now, with calm indifference to the conventional, he usually carries a long staff and wears his coat fastened in at the waist by a bit of rope. His home is a little cottage on the edge of town, where he lives entirely alone. On almost any warm afternoon he can be found seated before his door reading, but he is ready enough to talk with the chance visitor whose curiosity to meet the composer of one of the National Songs of America, has brought him thither. A newspaper man who recently went to talk with the old minstrel found him seated in the shade by his house with a book open before him. As he went up the path, he said, for he had some doubt in his own mind, —

“Are you Dan Emmett, who wrote Dixie?”

“Well, I have heard of the fellow; sit down,” and Emmett motioned to the steps.

“Won’t you tell me how the song was written?”

“Like most everything else I ever did,” said Emmett, “it was written because it had to be done. One Saturday night, in 1859, as I was leaving Bryant’s Theater, where I was playing, Bryant called after me, ‘I want a walk-’round for Monday, Dan.’

“The next day it rained and I stayed indoors. At first when I went at the song I couldn’t get anything. But a line, kept repeating itself in my mind, and I finally took it for my start. The rest wasn’t long in coming. And that’s the story of how Dixie was written.

‘I wish I was in Dixie,’

“It made a hit at once, and before the end of the week everybody in New York was whistling it. Then the South took it up and claimed it for its own. I sold the copyright for five hundred dollars, which was all I ever made from it. I’ll show you my first copy.”

He went into the house and returned in a moment with a yellow, worn-looking manuscript in his hand.

“That’s Dixie,” he said, holding it up for inspection. “I am going to give it to some historical society in the South, one of these days, for though I was born here in Ohio, I count myself a Southerner, as my father was a Virginian.”

Dixie Land was without question the most famous of all the Southern war songs. But it was the tune, as in the case of Yankee Doodle, and not the words that gave it its great power to fire the heart. It is claimed that Emmett appropriated the tune from an old negro air, which is quite probable.

The only poem set to the famous air of Dixie which has any literary merit is one that was written by General Albert Pike. Some one has said that it is worthy of notice that the finest Puritan lyric we have was written by an Englishwoman, Mrs. Felicia Hemans, and the most popular Southern war song was written by a Yankee, a native of Massachusetts. Albert Pike was born in Boston, December 29, 1809, but most of his boyhood was spent in Newburyport. He became a teacher, but in 1831 visited what was then the wild region of the Southwest with a party of trappers. He afterward edited a paper at Little Rock, and studied law. He served in the Mexican War with distinction, and on the breaking out of the Rebellion enlisted, on the Confederate side, a force of Cherokee Indians, whom he led at the battle of Pea Ridge. After the war he edited the Memphis Appeal till 1868, when he settled in Washington as a lawyer. He has written a number of fine poems, and retired from the profession of law in 1880, to devote himself to literature and Freemasonry. Mr. Pike’s version of Dixie is as follows, —

“Southrons, hear your Country call you!
Up, lest worse than death befall you!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Lo! all the beacon fires are lighted —
Let all hearts be now united!