War between the Union (North) and Confederacy (South), 1861–1865. Traditional processes, genres, and contexts of folkloric creativity arose out of the American Civil War, or “War between the States,” experience. Songs like “Dixie,” legends and family narratives, and commemorative forms have left their mark on American folk culture to the present day. An event as powerfully definitive as the American Civil War is bound to make an enormous impact on a people’s expressive culture. In the Civil War period, folk expressive traditions were richly intertwined with popular literate traditions of the day. This is particularly true in the area of music but also holds for narrative and verbal art. The musical culture of the Civil War period was strong and varied. In this era before the age of mechanical reproduc-tion, the majority of people engaged in music making. People drew both from the continuing unwritten folk musical traditions they were part of and also from the popular music of the day with its lively sheet-music and broadside industry. What people actually sang, played, and danced to was a blend from these sources. Probably the most famous songs to come out of the war were the rallying songs and anthems of the conflict; “Dixie,” “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” “John Brown’s Body,” “Maryland, My Maryland,” “Marching through Georgia,” and “The Batde Cry of Freedom” are some of the best known. All of these songs were original compositions (often based on traditional melodies) that were quickly embraced by participants, who modified and changed the words to better express their perspectives on the situations they found themselves in. Thus, Union soldiers sang “Northern” versions of “Dixie,” and Southern women sang an adaptation of “The Bonnie Blue Flag” called “The Homespun Dress” that expressed the hardships of the time from a woman’s perspective and has remained popular in the folk tradition. The rival army camps were fertile grounds for folkloric musical creativity. “All Quiet along the Potomac,” “Lorena,” “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again,” “Home Sweet Home,” “Tenting on the Old Camp Ground,” and other tragic and sentimental songs were widely sung. Other songs had less serious themes, including the humorous “Goober Peas” and the drinking song “Drink It Down.” Glee clubs, impromptu string bands, minstrel troupes, and military brass bands performed regularly in the camps. The routines of camp life, reveille, dinner calls, sick calls and musters were all subject to parody and witty musical embellishment. In the Northern Army, the different ethnic groups such as Germans, Italians, and Irish contributed to the musical mix with songs from their own traditions. The war also proved to be a rich source of material for the Anglo American ballad tradition. Several ballads have been collected that recount aspects of the naval action surrounding the Monitor and the Merrimac. “The Batde of Shiloh” adapts a traditional British ballad, “The Heights of Alma,” to comment on the glories and horrors of that engagement. “Fare You Well My Darling” recounts the sad farewell of a soldier from his wife. For Black Americans, the war had a different significance than for their White counterparts. In the Black tradition, the Civil War stood as a redemptive moment, the long awaited call to freedom. This is humorously marked in a line from an improvised worksong recorded by anti-slave activists in Port Royal, South Carolina: “De Nordimen Dey’s Got Massa Now, Glory Hallelujah.” For Blacks, narratives focused on emancipation and the countless scenes at the end of the war when their freedom was announced. In dozens of oral histories of former slaves, this scene is recounted and signals a turning point in both collective and personal history. For White participants, oral forms were more varied, reflecting a greater range of experiences. The camps once again were the point of origin of much of this folklore. Although much of the folk humor of the war remains undocumented because of the sensibilities of this period, a good deal remains, found in the many letters, diaries, and reminiscences that were written. “Here’s your mule” became a standard joke in the Southern camps, a greeting whose origin lies in the wit of a soldier who pointed out a bedraggled comrade in his tent to another soldier searching for his animal. Soldiers “fined” each other “muggins,” bottles of whiskey, for making cracks about the privations of camp life. The process of legend dissemination began to be greatly influenced by print media in this period. Colorful incidents focusing on the great leaders of the period—Lincoln, Lee, Grant, Sherman, Stuart, McLellan—were circulated orally in the camps and picked up on by reporters, who further embellished them and broadcast them to the larger public where again these stories were retold. In the context of the camps, where spare time, lack of solid information, and anxiety intermingled, rumors enjoyed a vigorous life. Assassination plots, peace, and foreign intervention were favorite topics of speculation. Particularly in the regions where the war was fought, legends have persisted about incidents of the war. Personal-experience narratives became family narratives and legends fueled by the powerful themes of ambivalence of loyalty, personal hardships, and acts of courage. Many of these narratives focus on the strength of women in the face of the horrors and injustice of war. A common theme of these stories is the bravery or guile of household members responding to raiders and bushwhackers. Many a great aunt has been celebrated for taking the law into her own hands at the rough treatment her household received. Along with these verbal forms, the memory and meaning of the war continued in other genres. For Blacks coming from the east Texas area, Juneteenth celebrations are important commemorations of emancipation. Veterans of the war donned their uniforms, marched in parades, and encamped at battlefields on important holidays and anniversaries of battles. Civil War reenacting, a recent form, provides opportunities for folkloric creativity and has become a tradition in its own right, interacting with preserved spaces, history education, movies, and video documentaries like Ken Burns’ PBS (Public Broadcasting System) series The Civil War to keep the war alive as part of the national imagination. Finally, the Confederate battle flag has become a powerfully contested symbol reflecting the continuing struggles for cultural definition in contemporary society. Rory P.B.Turner
References
Anderson, Jay. 1984. Time Machines: The World of Living History. Nashville: American Association for State and Local History. Botkin, Benjamin A. 1960. A Civil War Treasury of Tales, Legends, and Folklore. New York: Random House. Heeps, Willard Allison. 1960. The Singing Sixties: The Spirit of the Civil War Days Drawn from the Music of the Times. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Silber, Irwin. 1960. Songs of the Civil War. New York: Co-lumbia University Press. Turner, Rory P.B. 1990. Bloodless Battles: The Civil War Reenacted. TDR (Tulane Drama Review) 34:123–136. Wiggins, William H., Jr. 1982. “They Closed the Town up, Man!”: Reflections on the Civic and Political Dimensions of Juneteenth. In Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual, ed. Victor Turner. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 284–295. Wiley, Bell Irvin. [1943] 1978. The Life of johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.