On Wednesday evening, musician and history buff Diane Taraz appeared at the First Congregational Church of Falmouth for a unique event combining her two areas of expertise. Presented by the Falmouth Historical Society, the program focused on the music of the Civil War, intertwining background information on songs from the era with authentic performances of the songs themselves.
Taraz, who appeared in period dress, and accompanied her lovely singing with guitar and dulcimer, told the audience that the music of the time, like the war itself, was more complex than standard history texts suggest, and captured “the tremendous diversity of emotions and attitudes about the war.”
While the standard narrative paints the Civil War as a simple struggle between slavery and freedom, the situation was much more complex. “Many in the North were passionate abolitionists,” Taraz said, “but many didn't give a hoot about freeing the slaves.”
The music of the time, and its role in society and the war, reflects the often contradictory, even paradoxical, state of nineteenth century America. For example, Stephen Foster, the musical genius whose compositions include such southern favorites as “Swanee River,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “Oh! Susanna,” was a native of Pennsylvania, and visited the South he wrote so nostalgically about only once during his tragically short life.
Abraham Lincoln's musical tastes were sometimes just as surprising. Taraz said Lincoln “probably heard more music in the White House than any president before or since.” And his playlist included at least one unexpected selection.
“Dixie,” written as a lighthearted tune to fill out the program of a minstrel show, remained popular in the North throughout the war, despite becoming the unofficial anthem of the Confederacy (much to the surprise of its Ohioan co-composer Daniel Emmett). Union military bands played it as they paraded past the White House, and Lincoln likely hummed along; he's reported to have asked for at least one encore, and possibly more, the first time the song was played for him.
Another of Lincoln's favorites was “Blue Tail Fly,” whose chorus of “Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care,” celebrates the sudden leisure time bestowed upon a slave by the freak death of his master. While the larger implications of “Dixie” were grafted onto the song after its composition, the upbeat ebullience of “Blue Tail Fly” masks what could hardly help but be considered a political statement from the beginning. “It's very subversive, if you think about it,” Taraz said. “I'm not sure they sang it much on the plantations.”
Perhaps because of its implications, probably simply because he liked the tune, Lincoln often played it on his harmonica, for which he was well known.
While the war dragged on, its overtones continued to shift, and music often reflected, and sometimes motivated, those changes in cultural perspective. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which Taraz called “the most inspirational song, perhaps, ever written,” may have done more to sanctify the Union's struggle in people's minds than all the speeches and sermons and slogans. “With this song,” Taraz said, “the war became placed as a very spiritual cause.”
But it wasn't the North's glorious battle hymn, nor any of the countless other patriotic anthems written during the war, with which Lincoln celebrated the end of the struggle. When he heard the news of Lee's surrender, the president ordered the nearest military band to play his old favorite, “Dixie.” He's reported to have explained, “That tune is now federal property.”