25 chapters
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25 chapters
THE AMERICAN FLAG.
THE AMERICAN FLAG.
The author of The American Flag was born to poverty, but by hard work he obtained a good education, and studied medicine under Dr. Nicholas Romayne, by whom he was greatly beloved. He obtained his degree and shortly afterward, in October, 1816, he was married to Sarah Eckford, who brought him a good deal of wealth. Two years later, his health failing, he visited New Orleans for the winter, hoping for its recovery. He returned to New York in the spring, only to die in the following autumn, Septem
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ADAMS AND LIBERTY.
ADAMS AND LIBERTY.
STATUE OF THE MINUTEMAN AT CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS STATUE OF THE MINUTEMAN AT CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS The father of the author of Adams and Liberty , or as it has been more usually entitled in later days, Ye Sons of Columbia , was the Robert Treat Paine who was one of the immortal signers of the Declaration of Independence. The author of this hymn was given by his parents the name of Thomas, but on account of that being the name of a notorious infidel of his time, he appealed to the legislature of
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YANKEE DOODLE.
YANKEE DOODLE.
It is certainly the tune of Yankee Doodle , and not the words of this old song, which captured the fancy of the country and held its sway in America for nearly a hundred and fifty years. The tune, however, is much older than that. It has been claimed in many lands. When Kossuth was in this country making his plea for liberty for Hungary, he informed a writer of the Boston Post that, when the Hungarians that accompanied him first heard Yankee Doodle on a Mississippi River steamer, they immediatel
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THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.
No song could have had a more inspiring source of creation than did this. Its author, Mr. Francis Scott Key, was a young lawyer who left Baltimore in September, 1814, while the war of 1812 was yet going on, and under a flag of truce visited the British fleet for the purpose of obtaining the release of a friend of his, a certain Doctor Beanes, who had been captured at Marlborough. After his arrival at the fleet he was compelled to remain with it during the bombardment of Fort McHenry, as the offi
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HAIL COLUMBIA.
HAIL COLUMBIA.
Joseph Hopkinson, like Francis Scott Key, the author of The Star-Spangled Banner , was also a lawyer. He commenced the practice of law in Easton, Pennsylvania, but soon removed to Philadelphia, where he acquired high distinction at the bar. He was four years a member of Congress, and was afterward appointed judge of the United States District Court, an office held by his grandfather under the British Crown before the Revolutionary War, and to which his father had been chosen on the organization
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COLUMBIA, THE GEM OF THE OCEAN.
COLUMBIA, THE GEM OF THE OCEAN.
This splendid song, as popular, perhaps, as any of America’s patriotic hymns, was written in 1843 by a young actor named Thomas à Becket. He was engaged at that time at the Chestnut Street Theater, in Philadelphia. He was waited upon by a Mr. D. T. Shaw, an acquaintance, who was also an actor, with the request that he would write him a song for his benefit night. Mr. Shaw had been trying to write one for himself, but had made a sad failure of it. He produced some patriotic lines, and asked Mr. À
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THE FLAG OF OUR UNION.
THE FLAG OF OUR UNION.
The author of The Flag of our Union was one of the most distinguished journalists of the early half of the nineteenth century in America. He was for many years the editor of the Mirror , which was in its time the best literary magazine in the country. Such men as William Cullen Bryant, Fitz-Green Halleck, Nathaniel P. Willis, Theodore S. Fay, and Epes Sargent found in its pages a chance to express the poetry, romance, and philosophy which flowed from their brilliant and graceful pens. Morris was
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JOHN BROWN’S BODY.
JOHN BROWN’S BODY.
No prophet is ever able to foretell what will catch the popular ear. The original John Brown song, written by Miss Edna Dean Proctor, is certainly far more coherent and intelligible than the lines which have formed the marching song for over a million men, and have held their own through a generation. It is well worth repeating here:— The more popular, if not more worthy, song of John Brown’s Body seems to have been of Massachusetts origin at the commencement of the Civil War. It was first sung
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DIXIE.
DIXIE.
PICKING COTTON PICKING COTTON 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
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THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM.
THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM.
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 f
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SONG OF A THOUSAND YEARS.
SONG OF A THOUSAND YEARS.
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 fa
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TENTING ON THE OLD CAMP GROUND.
TENTING ON THE OLD CAMP GROUND.
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 neve
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THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.
THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.
This is, perhaps, the most elevated and lofty strain of American patriotism. Julia Ward Howe is a worthy author of such a hymn. She was the daughter of Samuel Ward, a solid New York banker of his time. Her mother, Julia Rush Ward, was herself a poet of good ability. Mrs. Howe received a very fine education, and, in addition to ordinary college culture, speaks fluently Italian, French, and Greek. In her girlhood she was a devout student of Kant, Hegel, Spinoza, Comte, and Fichte. Her literary wor
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JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE, MOTHER.
JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE, MOTHER.
George F. Root was born in Sheffield, Massachusetts, in 1820. He has perhaps written more popular war songs than any other American. His songs have carried his name to the ends of the earth. He was a musician from childhood. He began as a boy by getting hold of every musical instrument he could find and attempting to master it. When about eighteen years of age, he left his father’s farm in the beautiful Housatonic Valley, and went to Boston to obtain instruction in music, which he had already de
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WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER.
WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER.
Charles Carroll Sawyer was born in Mystic, Connecticut, in 1833. His father, Captain Joshua Sawyer, was an old-fashioned Yankee sea captain. The family moved to New York when Charles was quite young, and he obtained his education in that city. The poetic instinct was marked in his youth, and at the age of twelve he wrote several sonnets which attracted a good deal of attention among his acquaintances. At the breaking out of the war he began to write war songs, and in a few months was recognized
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MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA.
MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA.
Among Mr. Work’s famous war songs, none have captured so wide an audience, or held their own so well since the war, as Marching through Georgia . I think it is the foraging idea, so happily expressed, that, more than anything else except the contagious music which starts the most rheumatic foot to keeping time, has given this song its popular sway. There was something so reckless and romantic in Sherman’s cutting loose from his base of supplies and depending on the country through which he march
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MY MARYLAND.
MY MARYLAND.
My Maryland , one of the most popular songs of the Confederacy, was written by James Ryder Randall, in 1861. Randall was at that time professor of English literature at Poydras College, upon the Fausse Rivière, of Louisiana. He was very young, and had but recently come from college in Maryland. He was full of poetry and romance, and when one day in April, 1861, he read in the New Orleans Delta the news of the attack on the Massachusetts Sixth as they passed through Baltimore, it fired his blood.
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ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC.
ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC.
Mrs. Beers’s right to the authorship of this famous song has been very severely contested, but there seems to be no reason now to doubt that the really fine poem is hers. Though there have been numerous claimants for its authorship, the one who has come nearest to carrying the day is, strange to say, a Southerner. It is curious indeed that a war song should be claimed by both sides, but that has been the story of this song. This Southerner is Lamar Fontaine. Mr. Fontaine was born at Gay Hill, Te
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THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME.
THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME.
Stephen Collins Foster has a very tender place in the hearts of the American people. His songs are marked by a tenderness and pathos which goes straight to the fountain of tears. Foster was born on the 4th of July, 1826, at Lawrenceburg, Pennsylvania. His native town was founded by his father, but was many years ago merged into the city of Pittsburg. Young Foster had good opportunities for education in an academy at Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and afterward at Jefferson College. He had a genius for
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THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.
THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.
Francis Miles Finch, the author of The Blue and the Gray , was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1827. He graduated with honor from Yale College in 1845 in his eighteenth year. He studied law and became a practicing lawyer of fine reputation at Ithaca, being elected an associate judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York in 1881. In July, 1853, he read a poem at the centennial celebration of the Linonian Society of Yale, in which several lyrics were introduced, including one on Nathan Hal
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RULE, BRITANNIA.
RULE, BRITANNIA.
The poet Southey declares that this noble ode in honor of Great Britain will be the political hymn of that country as long as she maintains her political power. It had a peculiar origin. Dr. Thomas Arne, the great musical composer, composed the music for his Masque of Alfred , and it was first performed at Cliefden House, near Maidenhead, on August 1, 1740. Cliefden was then the residence of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the occasion was to commemorate the accession of George I. and in honor o
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THE WATCH ON THE RHINE.
THE WATCH ON THE RHINE.
The Watch on the Rhine was written by Max Schneckenburger in 1840, and though not so fine a poem from a literary standpoint as many others that have embodied the same sentiment, it has about it that nameless charm which has enthralled the popular heart. Although it was thirty years old in 1870, it then struck its first great popularity and became by all odds the most popular war song in Germany. Schneckenburger, like many another hymn writer, owes his entire reputation to a single song. He was a
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THE MARSEILLAISE.
THE MARSEILLAISE.
This is perhaps the most famous song in the world. Not because it is sung more frequently than any other song, but because it has about it in title, romantic story, and fervor, something that has touched the heart of mankind and inspired for it a respect and admiration in all civilized lands. Its author, Rouget de Lisle, was a young artillery officer who had a fancy for newspaper writing, and had contributed a number of articles to a newspaper in Strasburg owned by the mayor of the city. He dine
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THE BLUE BELLS OF SCOTLAND.
THE BLUE BELLS OF SCOTLAND.
The father of Annie McVicar was an officer in the British army and was transferred to this country for service in the American Colonies in 1757. When he left the old country with his troops his little daughter was but two years old. Soon after he went away the little girl wandered from home one day, greatly to the alarm of her family. She was overtaken by a friend, and when asked where she was going said, “I am going to America to see papa.” In 1758, the mother and little girl crossed the ocean
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RECESSIONAL.
RECESSIONAL.
Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, celebrated on the 22nd of June, 1897, has gone into history as the greatest human pageant in the whole story of humanity. As sovereign of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India, she occupies the most powerful position on earth. In addition to the material power represented, the admiration and love in which she is held by the truest people of every nation and kindred, because of her wise reign as well as her long and pure life, swelled her jubilee into a
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