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I t i 4 p rr r 4 lilt 6 By WAR E E L There wasn't much t among AmerIcan American composers even as late as the the evil war and for their 1 songs they went went to the foreign com composers composers f. f posers adapting the music of oi other I peoples and taking airs and mel melodies from froni operas and folk so folk gs The r t beautiful German student melody O 0 Tannenbaum became the musical musical mu mu- setting of the verses which l lJames James Ryder Randall wrote under the x title Maryland My Maryland but a athe the air too to tobe to-be be used was popular on ony r Iy one side only and northern poets set y words to the melody elody so that the song was heard on both sides of the Mason and Dixon and Dixon line Une r When When Johnny Comes Marching Home was set to to- music which bears close resemblance to John And on f My Jo in Its opening phrases Johnnie John nie was as written by Louis Lamb Lambert rt a Connecticut boy who at t the outbreak of the civil war offered his services f. f but who on account of his youth was not accepted x u At the beginning of the war wa poets r and musi musicians lans were encouraged to write an anthem which would arouse patriotism and military ardor but to L o outline such a task is one one thing and and to execute the order quite another Louis Louis S S. S Elson Elson in his work on The National Music of America says of such efforts efforts S No man has ever yet sat sat down down with the dellb deliberate rate intentions of fl j writing g a hymn with hymn with the single exception exception ex ex- l n of Joseph Haydn and the the Austrian Austrian Aus- Aus Austrian trian trian national hymn hymn- hymn and and nd produced C one one A national anthem comes come by inspiration in in- dv and sometimes by accident sometimes a piece of v very ry worthy music is a failure as a a. na national on l song sometimes sometimes- a work which max may strictly be be c classed assed as as' as trashy be becomes omes a nations nation's nations nation's na na- na tion's war war cr cry When the war war opened a number of I Z l d patriotic northern gentlemen en offered ced p Q l r- r fY a prize of for the wor words s and i I J music of a national hymn and they T placed the t selection selection n of this wonderful hymn in the hands of a committee of thirteen persons About twelve hundred hundred hundred hun hun- dred manuscripts were submitted and nd consigned to t the e waste basket et and the committee retired in disgust declaring def de de- f claring that Glaring that no poet or composer composer had hadS f S produced a work w worthy to be ba called national So So mu much h for design A Accident ident f fared better beiter fo for the greatest of t the theR e eI R I war hymns Mrs Mrs Julia Ward Howes Howe's s Inspired Battle Hymn of the Republic Republic Republic lic came about by accident William Steffe a a popular writer of Sunday school tunes claimed the air airas airas airas as his pis own and as no one disputed him he probably is entitled to to o the credit of writing Glory Hallelujah the foundation and source of the call caIl to patriotism patriotIsm- This hymn was sung by the southern negroes at their c camp mp meetings early as-early early as 1856 and the theU U firemen of Charleston S S. S C. C sung It at their perilous wor work Then the war began a glee club attached to the Second Second Sec Sec- ond Batt Battalion Uon of Massa Massachusetts Infantry Infantry In In- 2 fantry known as as as' The Tigers took f up the song because of f its rhythmic swing swing and in the the trenches of an an old oldfort oldfort oldfort fort which the battalion was was- ordered 1 to repair they set new words to the theair theair theair air using the name of one of the glee club members a Scotchman named L John Johp Brown It became known known as the John Brown Song but It was not J until long art after r th the inception ot of the song song that this term was made to mean the John JohnBrown Brown of ot tomie The Tigers did not go gothe the war war a as asa asa a body but were scattered through different companies of the Twelfth Massachusetts Regiment They took the song with them and the the- regiment carried it to the war Then it underwent underwent under under- i went another metamorphosis Edna Edn I IDean Dean Proctor wrote words which I br breathed thed the spirit of abolition into the music but they never gained much popularity However In this form the song ong was heard by Julia Ward Howe Dr James Freeman Clarke and other distinguished men and women Dr Clarke was so impressed impressed im im- pressed with the possibilities as was Mrs Howe that he implored her to write new words for it She consented consent consent- ed and Mine Eyes Eyes' Have Seen the Glory of the Lord was was the result The other class of war songs songs those those which tell of home and family were family were many times interdicted on on n the battlefield battlefield battle battle- field and in the campS for they were prolific of f suicides and desertions In this Charles Carroll Sawyers Sawyer's When V en This Cruel War Is Over and Stephen C. C Fosters Foster's Suwanee River were were under the ban of om offic official ial displeasure Chicago sure Chicago Tribune |