Part 4

McClellan is our leader, we 've had our last retreat,

We 'll now go marching on.

Say, brothers, will you meet us,

Say, brothers, will you meet us,

Say, brothers, will you meet us,

As we go marching on?

*****

The girls we left behind us, boys, our sweethearts in the

North,

The girls we left behind us, boys, our sweethearts in the

North,

The girls we left behind us, boys, our sweethearts in the

North,

Smile on us as we march.

Oh sweethearts, don't forget us,

Oh sweethearts, don't forget us,

Oh sweethearts, don't forget us,

We 'll soon come marching home.

A seaman on board the Vandalia, one of the ships engaged in the capture of Port Royal, wrote a description of the engagement, which has considerable of the light of battle in it. It is entitled:--

THE PORT ROYAL DANCE.

Behold our glorious banner floats gayly in the air,

But four hours hence base traitors swore we could not plant

it there;

But brave Dupont he led us on to fight the vaunting foe,

And soon the rebel standard was in the dust laid low.

Whack row de dow,

How are you, old Port Royal?

Whack row de dow,

How are you, Secesh?

When we were seen advancing they laughed with foolish pride,

And said that soon our Northern fleet they'd sink beneath

the tide;

And with their guns trained carefully they waited our advance,

And the gallant Wabash soon struck up the music of the

dance.

The Susquehanna next in line delivered her broadside,

With deadly aim each shot was sent and well each gun was

plied;

And still our gallant ships advanced, and each one, as she

passed,

Poured in her deadly messengers, and the foe fell thick and

fast.

Each ship advanced in order, each captain wore a smile,

Until the famed Vandalia brought up the rear in style,

And as our guns were shortest we balanced to the right,

And brought us to the enemy the closest in the fight.

Then round the room (Port Royal bay) we took a Highland

Fling,

And showed them in Fort Walker what loud music we could

sing.

And then we poured in our broadsides that brought their

courage low,

And o'er the rebel batteries soon our Union flag did flow.

Three cheers for gallant Haggerty, he led us safely through;

And three for our loved Whiting, he is the real true blue.

Success to every officer who fought with us that day;

Together may we pass unscathed through many a gallant

fray.

A health to every gallant tar who did his duty well,

Peace to the ashes of the dead who nobly fighting fell.

'T was in a glorious cause they died, the Union to maintain.

We who are left, when called upon, will try it o'er again.

Some of the disagreeable features of a soldier's duty and camp life were dealt with by the soldiers in the spirit of humorous exaggeration, which was as much an evidence of high spirits as the enthusiastic choruses. A camp poet thus relieves his feelings in regard to the exercise of "double quick:"--

Since I became a volunteer things have went rather queer;

Some say I'm a three months' man, and others a three years'

volunteer.

With plenty of likes and dislikes to all I have to stick;

There's plenty of pork, salt horse, and plenty of Double

Quick.

Oh, I'm miserable, I'm miserable,

To all I 'll have to stick.

The old salt horse is passable,

But d-n the Double-Quick.

If a friend should call to see you the men have a pretty game.

They call him paymaster, obstacle, or some such kind of a

name.

They chase him around the camp; it's enough to make him

sick

To try and teach him discipline by giving him Double-Quick.

You may feel rather hungry, almost in a starving state,

And you wish to get your dinner first, all ready with your

plate;

There's always others just the same, waiting for the lick;

To be the twentieth one, you must travel Double-:Quick.

Once upon every Sunday to church you must always go,

Your bayonet by your side in case you should meet the foe;

And when the service was ended it was called the moral trick

To drive you back to your camp at a pleasant Double-Quick.

Each day there are just twelve roll-calls to keep you in the

camp;

If off three rods the bugle sounds, back you will have to tramp,

And, if you chance to miss, why, you are a poor, gone chick,--

Fourteen bricks in your knapsack, and four hours Double

Quick.

Now, all you chaps who would enlist, don't leap before you

look,

And, if you wish to fight for the Union, go on your own hook,

For, if a soldier you become, it will be your last kick,

To the devil you will surely be drove headlong Double-Quick.

The Southern poetry of the civil war was even more rhetorical and stilted than that of the North. Its literary culture was more provincial, and its style a great deal more inflated and artificial. It was the "foemen" that they were to meet instead of the enemy, and "gore" instead of blood that was to be shed; and there was a great deal about the "clank of the tyrant's chain," and the "bloodstained sword," and such other fuliginous figures of speech. Sometimes there was a good deal of force behind this sounding rhetoric, as in Henry Timrod's A Call to Arms and in James R. Randall's There's Life in the Old Land yet, but for the most part it had an air of bombast and turgidity, which would have given a false impression in regard to the real spirit of determination among the Southern people, if one had only judged by its inflated expression. The pages of the Southern Amaranth, and other collections of rebel poetry, give the impression of having been written by school-boys, and contain little but sophomoric rhetoric of the most sounding and inflated description. That it had a fiery energy and an invincible determination behind it was abundantly shown, but the voice of the South in its polite literature was one of inflated extravagance. Nevertheless it produced the most manly and vigorous song of the whole war in Dr. J. W. Palmer's Stonewall Jackson's Way; and some verses appeared in a Richmond paper in 1861, entitled Call All, which have a fiery energy and directness unsurpassed, and were in the genuine language of the people:

CALL ALL.

Whoop! the Doodles have broken loose,

Roaring around like the very deuce.

Lice of Egypt, a hungry pack;

After 'em, boys, and drive 'em back,

Bull-dog, terrier, cur, and fice,

Back to the beggarly land of ice.

Worry 'em, bite 'em, scratch and tear

Everybody and everywhere.

Old Kentucky is caved from under;

Tennessee is split asunder,

Alabama awaits attack,

And Georgia bristles up her back.

Old John Brown is dead and gone,

Still his spirit is marching on,--

Lantern-jawed, and legs, my boys,

Long as an ape's from Illinois.

Want a weapon? Gather a brick,

A club or cudgel, a stone or stick,

Anything with a blade or butt,

Anything that can cleave or cut;

Anything heavy, or hard, or keen;

Any sort of slaying machine;

Anything with a willing mind

And the steady arm of a man behind.

Want a weapon? Why, capture one;

Every Doodle has got a gun,

Belt and bayonet, bright and new.

Kill a Doodle and capture two!

Shoulder to shoulder, son and sire,

All, call all! to the feast of fire,

Mother and maiden, child and slave,

A common triumph or a single grave.

The street ballad did not exist in the South, so far as I can discover, and the popular song-books were very few in comparison with those of the North. There were some, however, printed on discolored paper and with worn-out type. Among them were The New Confederate Flag Songster, S. C. Griggs, Mobile; The General Lee Songster, John C. Schreiner & Son, Macon and Savannah; The Jack Morgan Songster, compiled by a captain in General Lee's army; and Songs of Love and Liberty, compiled by a North Carolina lady, Raleigh, 1864. Like the Northern song-books, they contained an admixture of the popular negro melodies with the songs of the war, and there are but few instances of any genuine and native expression. The song which gave the title to The Jack Morgan Songster, however, has a good deal of force and vigor, and was evidently written by the camp fire. It is entitled Three Cheers for our Jack Morgan:--

The snow is in the cloud,

And night is gathering o'er us,

The winds are piping loud,

And fan the flame before us.

Then join the jovial band,

And tune the vocal organ,

And with a will we 'll all join in

Three cheers for our Jack Morgan.

Chorus. Gather round the camp fire,

Our duty has been done,

Let's gather round the camp fire

And have a little fun.

Let's gather round the camp fire,

Our duty has been done,

'T was done upon the battle field,

Three cheers for our Jack Morgan.

Jack Morgan is his name,

The peerless and the lucky;

No dastard foe can tame

The son of old Kentucky.

His heart is with his State,

He fights for Southern freedom;

His men their General's word await,

They 'll follow where he 'll lead 'em.

He swore to free his home,

To burst her chains asunder,

With sound of trump and drum

And loud Confederate thunder.

And in the darksome night,

By light of homesteads burning,

He puts the skulking foe to flight,

Their hearts to wailings turning.

The dungeon, dark and cold,

Could not his body prison,

Nor tame a spirit bold

That o'er reverse had risen.

Then sing the song of joy,

Our toast is lovely woman,

And Morgan he's the gallant boy

To plague the hated foeman.

The tone of the Southern songs was not only a good deal more ferocious and savage than that of those of the North, but there were fewer indications of that spirit of humor which pervaded the Northern camps, and found expression in the soldiers' songs. There is, however, one Southern piece of verse, descriptive of the emotions of the newly drafted conscript, which has an original flavor of comicality, although evidently inspired by the spirit of Yankee Doodle:--

THE VALIANT CONSCRIPT.

How are you, boys? I'm just from camp,

And feel as brave as Cæsar;

The sound of bugle, drum, and fife

Has raised my Ebenezer.

I'm full of fight, odds shot and shell,

I 'll leap into the saddle,

And when the Yankees see me come,

Lord, how they will skedaddle!

Hold up your head, up, Shanghai, Shanks,

Don't shake your knees and blink so,

It is no time to dodge the act;

Brave comrades, don't you think so?

I was a ploughboy in the field,

A gawky, lazy dodger,

When came the conscript officer

And took me for a sodger.

He put a musket in my hand,

And showed me how to fire it;

I marched and countermarched all day;

Lord, how I did admire it!

With corn and hog fat for my food,

And digging, guarding, drilling,

I got as thin as twice-skimmed milk,

And was scarcely worth the killing.

And now I'm used to homely fare,

My skin as tough as leather,

I do guard duty cheerfully

In every kind of weather.

I'm brimful of fight, my boys,

I would not give a "thank ye"

For all the smiles the girls can give

Until I've killed a Yankee.

High private is a glorious rank,

There's wide room for promotion;

I 'll get a corporal's stripes some day,

When fortune's in the notion.

'T is true I have not seen a fight,

Nor have I smelt gunpowder,

But then the way I 'll pepper 'em

Will be a sin to chowder.

A sergeant's stripes I now will sport,

Perhaps be color-bearer,

And then a captain--good for me--

I 'll be a regular tearer.

I'll then begin to wear the stars,

And then the wreaths of glory,

Until the army I command,

And poets sing my story.

Our Congress will pass votes of thanks

To him who rose from zero,

The people in a mass will shout,

Hurrah, behold the hero!

(Fires his gun by accident.)

What's that? oh dear! a boiler's burst,

A gaspipe has exploded,

Maybe the Yankees are hard by

With muskets ready loaded.

On, gallant soldiers, beat'em back,

I 'll join you in the frolic,

But I 've a chill from head to foot,

And symptoms of the colic.

The spirit of the Southern women is well known to have been as vigorous and determined as that of their brothers, and the sacrifices which they were compelled to make were much more severe and general than at the North. They had been dependent upon the North and foreign countries for clothing and the luxuries of the household, and when these sources of supply were cut off by the war and the blockade, they had to make and sew their own homespun dresses, and forego all the delights of fashion and adornment. The sacrifices and devotion of the daughters of the South were sung in turgid rhetoric, like the threats and appeals of the men, but here is a genuine voice, evidently a woman's own, which speaks for her sisters in their homelier trials, as well as in their deeper emotions:--

THE SOUTHERN GIRL'S SONG.

Oh yes, I am a Southern girl,

And glory in the name,

And boast it with far greater pride

Than glittering wealth or fame.

We envy not the Northern girl

With robes of beauty rare,

Though diamonds grace her snowy neck

And péarls bedeck her hair.

Hurrah, hurrah,

For the sunny South so dear.

Three cheers for the homespun dress

That Southern ladies wear!

The homespun dress is plain, I know,

My hat's palmetto, too,

But then it shows what Southern girls

For Southern rights will do.

We have sent the bravest of our land

To battle with the foe,

And we will lend a helping hand;

We love the South, you know.

Now, Northern goods are out of date,

And since old Abe's blockade,

We Southern girls can be content

With goods that's Southern made.

We sent our sweethearts to the war,

But, dear girls, never mind,

Your soldier love will ne'er forget

The girl he left behind.

The soldier is the lad for me,

A brave heart I adore;

And when the sunny South is free,

And when the fight is no more,

I 'll choose me then a lover brave

From out the gallant band;

The soldier lad I love the best

Shall have my heart and hand.

The Southern land's a glorious land,

And has a glorious cause;

Then cheer, three cheers for Southern rights

And for the Southern boys.

We 'll scorn to wear a bit of silk,

A bit of Northern lace;

And make our homespun dresses up,

And wear them with such grace.

And now, young men, a word to you:

If you would win the fair,

Go to the field where honor calls

And win your lady there.

Remember that our brightest smiles

Are for the true and brave,

And that our tears are all for those

Who fill a soldier's grave.

The folk-songs of the civil war, in which millions were engaged and which lasted for four years, do not compare in quality with those which much lighter struggles have produced, notably the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland. The Americans were not a singing people in the bent of their genius, and the conditions of life and civilization were not favorable to this form of expression. The newspaper had taken the place of the ballad as a means of influencing the public mind, and poetry had passed from the people to the literary artists. So when the great crisis of the civil war came, affecting all minds and all hearts, the people were unfamiliar with this mode of expression, and the literary artists had not the power to interpret their feelings except in their own artificial forms without touching the heart or giving vital meaning to the voice. The accident of the combination of genius with this sincerity, which produced La Marseillaise and Der Wacht am Rhein, did not occur, so that the great struggle is without an equally great song embodying and interpreting the spirit of the nation, and whatever fine poems and songs there were distinctly fall below this ideal. But in such a struggle the voice of the people could not fail to find expression by the means which the history of mankind has shown to be the most natural expression of emotion and enthusiasm, and their songs, however imperfect, either as literature or popular poetry, are the most genuine expression of the feelings and thoughts which filled their hearts and minds, and have a genuineness which informs the rude or inadequate words, and are a most important illustration of the history of that tremendous conflict.

ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS.

|Professor Francis James Child's edition of the English and Scottish Popular Ballads, monumental in size, is still more monumental in the labor which it represents. It embodies not only diligent research for the most authentic and original versions of the ancient ballads in all the known sources in print or in manuscript, and the recovery of many from still living traditions in Great Britain and the United States, but a careful study and comparison of the folk-song of kindred European nations and of the world for resemblances in subject and story; thus making a most interesting and valuable addition to the knowledge of the common development of the human intellect in primitive thought and form of expression in diverse countries. How much study this has involved can only be appreciated by those who have seen its results in the concise introductions to each ballad, citing comparisons in every known literature, and yet further work in this direction will be left for later scholars, as the study and collection of folk-song is being pursued with more and more zeal and success in every quarter of the world, under the appreciation of its great literary as well as historical value. Professor Child has been governed by the strictest conscientiousness in giving his version of the popular ballads, not only going to the original sources like the Percy folio, the manuscript materials for The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border preserved at Abbotsford, Motherwell's note books, and other manuscripts and stall copies, but reprinting them with all their omissions and defects, not supplying the most obvious missing word or even letter without indicating it. He has not followed the example of the strictly faithful editors of the ancient ballads like Motherwell in presenting alone the most complete and perfect specimen, nor allowed himself like others, substantially faithful, like Scott and Jamieson, to collate a number of copies derived from different sources into a harmonious whole,-but gives each version distinct in itself, even to a solitary variant verse. It is one of the commonplaces of the history of English and Scottish ballad poetry that most of its collectors and editors from Bishop Percy downward have felt themselves entitled to amend and correct the imperfect fragments to a greater or less degree, supplying missing lines or stanzas to connect or complete the story, and that this has resulted sometimes in the most incongruous patchwork in which the sentiments and poetical fashions of one generation have been foisted upon those of another to the utter destruction of all verisimilitude, to say nothing of strength and genuineness of expression. Bishop Percy, with all his fine taste and genuine poetic power, was a conspicuous sinner in this respect, and patched the rough and strong frieze of the ancient ballads with pieces of the thin and sleazy silk of eighteenth century sentiment and diction. Even Scott, with all his sense of honesty and appreciation of the value of the integrity of the ancient ballads, could not always refrain from his possessing temptation "to give a hat and stick" to the stories which he heard, and, as Professor Child points out, there are some stanzas in the Border Minstrelsy which bear suspiciously his mark, and of which the originals have not been found in his manuscript materials. It is true enough that Scott's additions and emendations, as well as those of Allan Cunningham, who was wholly indifferent to the genuineness and integrity of his originals, were likely to be in the very spirit and turn of expression of the ancient ballads, and that the lover of poetry for its own sake will not be likely to find fault with them, but the real student of folk-song must repudiate them, and can be content only with the genuine expressions of the people, as they lived in tradition, however inchoate and imperfect they may he. The historical and ethnological value of the ancient ballads consists in their absolute genuineness, and even the imperfection of their utterances illustrates the condition of the popular mind and the characteristics of the individual intelligence which produced them, and are important geological evidences of the growth and development of the human intellect. At the same time this very imperfection of speech, and the struggle of primitive thought to express itself in language sometimes creates, as it were by accident, the very flower of strength and vividness in picturesque description, and the interpretation of emotion as the most skillful art has been unable to do. How strong these ballads were, and what a hold they had upon the minds and imaginations of the people, as the interpretation of their innate poetic spirit, is shown in the tenacity with which they have lived, and been reproduced in varying forms through generations down to the present day. Ballads like The Cruel Sister and Lord Thomas and Fair Annet, the production probably of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, have been recovered, with the essential burden of their verse and the subject of their story, from the mouths of English peasants and Irish servant girls, and in the folk-lore of the American nursery, to which they had been transmitted simply by the force of oral tradition, and without any assistance from print; and it is not likely that they will entirely disappear for generations to come, any more than the perennial nursery tales which were created by and appeal to the primitive and childish imagination. These traditional versions have been altered to suit the localities, and weakened in their coherence and vigor of expression from the time when they were the literature of the main body of the people instead of the lowest class, as the stall copies of the ballads of the ancient minstrels, when they were the attendants of kings and nobles and shared the inspiration of chivalry, have been degraded to the level of the intelligence of the audience of the street singers or the gatherings in the taprooms of the village alehouses; but they retain the essential characteristics of simple emotion, inherent melody, and primitive language, and have still something of the fine and penetrating flavor of popular romance.