AMERICAN WAR BALLADS AND LYRICS A COLLECTION OF THE SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE COLONIAL…

EDITED BY

GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON

VOLUME I.

NEW YORK AND LONDON

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS The Knickerbocker Press

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Copyright G. P. Putnam's Sons 1889

The Knickerbocker Press, New York Electrotyped and Printed by G. P. Putnam's Sons

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ILLUSTRATIONS.

Typogravures by W. Kurtz.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

The editor of these volumes makes grateful acknowledgment of the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., Harper & Brothers, Ticknor & Co., and D. Lothrop & Co., in freely permitting him to make use of poems of which they own the copyright, and of their other good offices. He feels himself indebted also to the living authors of many poems here presented, for their readiness in consenting to the use of their writings, and for the care that many of them have taken to furnish him with correct versions of poems commonly printed in inaccurate forms. He is under special obligations in this regard to General Albert Pike, who has furnished a transcript, from his own copy of a rare, privately printed volume, of the stirring ballad "Buena Vista," for which a vain search had been made.

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PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION.

In the preparation of these volumes there has been no attempt at completeness. The literature from which the materials are drawn is much too vast to be compressed into two little volumes like these. The aim has been simply to make the collection fairly representative in character, and to include in it those pieces relating to our several wars which best reflect the spirit of the times that produced them.

The work of selection in such a case must always be difficult and the result more or less unsatisfactory. There are many reasons for this, some of which no one who has not undertaken a task of this kind can fully appreciate. There is no fixed standard of judgment by which to make a certainly just comparative estimate of the quality of several poems, some of which must be taken and the others left. Merit, in the case of war poems, is the composite result of so many different things that no criticism[Pg 4] can hope to make an entirely satisfactory qualitative analysis of such literature. The poetic quality of some pieces entitles them to editorial acceptance, quite irrespective of other considerations, while there are other pieces having very little poetic quality, or none at all, whose claim to consideration on other grounds is incontestable. Mr. Stedman's "Wanted—A Man," Mr. William Winter's exquisitely tender poem "After All," Miss Osgood's "Driving Home the Cows," and Mr. George Parsons Lathrop's "Keenan's Charge," may serve as

examples of pieces which no editor with the least capacity of poetic appreciation would hesitate to include in such a collection on the ground of merit even if their character were somewhat at variance, as in this case it is not, with the scheme of the collection. On the other hand there are such things as "Three Hundred Thousand More," several of the rude songs of the war of 1812, and many other pieces, which make equally imperative claims to favor on grounds that have no relation to the question of poetic merit.

The song concerning the "Constitution and Guerrière," for example, is very nearly as destitute of poetic quality as metrical writing can be, and yet no editor of a collection like this would think of omitting a piece that had[Pg 5] for so many years stirred the hearts of patriots and moved them to rejoice in the achievements of their country's heroes.

The complex nature of the considerations that must determine the choice of poems for inclusion is but one of several difficulties encountered in the execution of such a task as this. In any event, many things must be omitted which merit insertion, and the reader who misses a favorite piece is prompt to point to others which seem to him less worthy, and to ask why these were not made to give place to the one omitted. There are three answers to be made to the challenge of such a reader: first, that his judgment in the matter may be wrong; second, that the editor, being human, may have erred in his choice; and third, that in a collection intended to be broadly representative rather than complete, preference must sometimes be given to the less worthy piece which happens to reflect some phase of sentiment not otherwise presented, even at the cost of sacrificing the worthier one which illustrates aspects otherwise sufficiently shown.

So much by way of explanation, not of apology; for if a book be in need of apology, no apology can be sufficient for it.

In the matter of arrangement the poems naturally fall[Pg 6] into five principal groups. Within the groups the chronology of the events referred to has been adopted as a general rule of arrangement, while for the most part poems that have no reference to particular events or epochs have been placed at the end of the groups to which they belong. No rule of arrangement, however, has been permitted to dominate other considerations where other considerations have seemed the more important.

In presenting the ballads and lyrics of the civil war, it has been thought best not to give those from the North and those from the South in separate groups. There are several objections to such an arrangement, of which it is perhaps sufficient to mention a single one, namely, that by the separation of poems relating to the same events or the same aspects of the struggle, much of their historical significance is lost, and the comparison which the reflective reader naturally wishes to make between the moods, impulses, aspirations, and points of view of the poets on opposite sides is rendered much more difficult and less satisfactory.

It would be a special pity, for example, not to place in juxtaposition Bryant's "Our Country's Call" and Timrod's "A Cry to Arms." An essay of no little value to[Pg 7] the student of the inner springs of history might be written upon these two poems with their strange similarities and their still stranger contrasts. Indeed a critic of creative ability might almost reconstruct the history of the events which produced the war, and discover the characters and circumstances and, above all, the points of view of the people on either side of the contest, by a study of these two appeals, even if all other sources of information were lost. For this and other reasons it has been thought best to make but a single group of the poems of the civil war, bringing together all those that relate to the same or to like subjects, and indicating the origin of the southern pieces by printing the word "Southern" at the end of each.

In the South during the civil war, almost all the adult males, with some who were rather adolescent than adult, were under arms. As a consequence, the men who wrote the poetry of the Southern side were necessarily soldiers. But in less peculiar circumstances the men who write the poetry of war, the men who make the songs that soldiers love to sing, the men who irresistibly stir patriotism in the blood of youth, the men who embalm heroic deeds in thrilling verse, and touch all hearts to pity and all eyes to tears by the tender pathos of their[Pg 8] chronicles of suffering, are not the men who do the fighting. It was not a soldier who wrote "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and it was the gentle master of Abbotsford that interpreted the daring deeds of knightly times in song and story. So in our civil war the most and the best of the poems, except as the matter was determined at the South by peculiar circumstances, were the work of men who were not themselves combatants. Cynical reflections have sometimes been indulged in on this

score, but they are unjust and shallow, as cynical reflections are apt to be. The qualities that make one a poet are not those that make one a soldier. Sometimes the two characters are united in one person, but that is rare; and the man who has the gift to write the poetry of a war which involves human liberty as its issue, best serves the cause by writing it. His part is as important as that of the soldier who bears arms, and his influence upon the result is quite as great. The patriotism and the courage of the Greeks owed more to Homer than to the warriors whose deeds he chronicled, and Paul Revere did far less for his country by what was after all a commonplace horseback journey, than Longfellow long afterward did by telling the story of that ride in quite other than commonplace poetry.

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Of the extent to which the war songs and ballads of a people influence the character and destiny of that people, much has been written, and the truth is not yet half told. Our present concern with this literature, however, has less regard to its influence than to its value as historical material. History records the events in a nation's life; poetry, and especially ballad poetry, reflects the character, the aspirations, the passions, and the purposes of a people; and viewed in this light a study of the war ballads and lyrics of our country must fill every reader's mind with hope and courage. Many of the poems presented in these little volumes are rude, some of them being scarcely better than doggerel, while much of the material is poetry of a very high order; but there are certain characteristics common to all the poems, and these are the characteristics that distinguish a virile race which encounters difficulty with stalwart courage and confronts danger with an unruffled mind. It is the poetry of strength and manly self-reliance. There is not a

plaint of weakness anywhere in it. It is inspired from beginning to end by a high and unfaltering faith in the truth of the doctrines of human liberty that underlie our entire history and constitute the vital principle of our institutions.

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The ruder poems are a trifle truculent now and then perhaps, but some little truculence may be allowed as a poetic license to the poet who sings of his countrymen's prowess in just wars. In preparing this little collection the editor has had occasion to read anew the entire body of American war poetry of the ballad and lyric class, and he ends the examination with a feeling of intense satisfaction in the knowledge that there is not an unmanly or a cowardly line in it and scarcely an ungenerous one.

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THE COLONIAL WARS

LOVEWELL'S FIGHT.

[This ballad, written in 1725, soon after the battle of May 8th, in that year, was said by a contemporary writer to be "the most beloved song in all New England," though "Chevy Chace" had been known there almost as well as in old England. The name of the author is lost to us, but his work has been preserved in Penhallow's "History of the Wars of New England with the Eastern Indians," 1726. The ballad is rude and destitute of poetic quality; but it has extraordinary interest as the earliest American war ballad known to us as having been dear to the hearts of the people who sang or recited it. It has interest, also, as a reflection of manners. The commendation bestowed upon the chaplain for scalping Indians as well as killing them is suggestive.—Editor.]

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LOVEWELL'S FIGHT.

[Pg 19]

THE SONG OF BRADDOCK'S MEN.

Fort DuQuesne Expedition, 1755.

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THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

LIBERTY TREE.

By THOMAS PAINE.

(Published in the Pennsylvania Magazine, 1775.)

[Pg 25]

FREE AMERICA.

[This poem first appeared in the newspapers in 1774, and was ascribed to Joseph Warren.—Editor.]

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EMANCIPATION FROM BRITISH DEPENDENCE.

By PHILIP FRENEAU.

[The following note explanatory of references to proper names, etc., in this poem is copied from Duyckinck's edition of Freneau.—Editor.]

Note.—Sir James Wallace, Admiral Graves, and Captain Montague, were British naval officers, employed on our coast. The Viper and Rose were vessels in the service. Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, had recently, in April, 1775, removed the public stores from Williamsburg, and, in conjunction with a party of adherents, supported by the naval force on the station, was making war on the province. William Tryon, the last Royal governor of New York, informed of a resolution of the Continental Congress: "That it be recommended to the several provincial assemblies in conventions and councils, or committees of safety, to arrest and secure every person in their respective[Pg 29] colonies whose going at large may, in their opinion, endanger the safety of the colony or the liberties of America," discerning the signs of the times, took refuge on board the Halifax packet in the harbor, and left the city in the middle of October, 1775.

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EMANCIPATION FROM BRITISH DEPENDENCE.

By PHILIP FRENEAU.

1775

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PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

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WARREN'S ADDRESS.

By JOHN PIERPONT.

[Pg 40]

NATHAN HALE.

By FRANCIS M. FINCH.

[Pg 43]

THE BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE.

(Moore's "Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution." 1856.)

[Pg 46]

THE BATTLE OF TRENTON

(From Griswold's "Curiosities of American literature." 1843.)

[Pg 48]

The Fate of John Burgoyne

(From Griswold's "Curiosities of American Literature.")

[Pg 51]

THE PROGRESS OF SIR JACK BRAG.

(McCarty's National Song-Book.)

[Pg 53]

WAR AND WASHINGTON.

(As sung during the Revolution.)

By JONATHAN MITCHELL SEWARD.

[Pg 57]

COLUMBIA.

By TIMOTHY DWIGHT.

(From Kettell's "Specimens," 1829. Written during the author's service as an army chaplain, 1777-78.)

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TAXATION OF AMERICA.

By PETER ST. JOHN, of Norwalk, Conn.

[In Moore's "Songs and Ballads of the Revolution," this poem bears date as of 1765, but the references in it to Burgoyne's surrender, to Brandywine, etc., indicate a much later date. It is possible that a part of the poem was written and published about 1765, and that additions making reference to revolutionary incidents were made afterward. But, internal evidence renders even this assumption improbable, and suggests that the date Moore gives is the result of some mistake.—Editor.]

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THE BATTLE OF THE KEGS.

By FRANCIS HOPKINSON.

(From "The Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings," 1792.)

[This ballad was occasioned by a real incident. Certain machines in the form of kegs, charged with gunpowder, were sent down the river to annoy the British shipping then at Philadelphia. The danger of these machines being discovered, the British manned the wharfs and shipping, and discharged their small-arms and cannons at every thing they saw floating in the river during the ebb tide.—Author's Note.]

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CARMEN BELLICOSUM.

By GUY HUMPHREY McMASTER.

[Pg 80]

THE YANKEE MAN-OF-WAR.

[Descriptive of the daring bravery of Captain John Paul Jones, in his cruise in the Irish Channel in 1778.]

(From Admiral Luce's "Naval Songs.")

[Pg 83]

PAUL JONES' VICTORY

(Battle between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis, September 23, 1779.)

1813.

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THE ROYAL ADVENTURER.

By PHILIP FRENEAU.

[In the year 1781, Prince William Henry (afterward William IV.), third son of George III., came to New York as a midshipman, accompanied by Admiral Digby. The tory authorities of the city overwhelmed the boy—he was just sixteen years old—with adulation, recording it as their conviction that his gracious presence in the country would shame the patriots out of their rebellion and win them to submission and loyalty.—Editor.]

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EUTAW SPRINGS.

TO THE MEMORY OF THE BRAVE AMERICANS, UNDER GENERAL GREENE, IN SOUTH CAROLINA, WHO FELL IN THE ACTION OF SEPTEMBER 8, 1781, AT EUTAW SPRINGS.

By PHILIP FRENEAU.

[Pg 92]

AN ANCIENT PROPHECY.

By PHILIP FRENEAU.

(Written soon after the surrender of Cornwallis.)

[Pg 94]

THE DANCE.

(Published soon after the surrender of Cornwallis.)

1781.

[1] In all the versions of this poem examined by the editor this line reads "His feet can no more move, sir"; but the reading is so clearly wrong that it seems proper to amend it so that the obviously intended rhyme between "more, sir" and "shore, sir" shall appear. There is the greater justification for the taking of this liberty of correction because the poem originally appeared in carelessly edited contemporary prints.—Editor.[Pg 97]

SONG OF MARION'S MEN.

By WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

[A very interesting bit of literary history attaches to this poem. The piece appeared in Mr. Bryant's first collected volume of poems about 1831. Mr. Bryant sent the volume, with a letter, to Washington Irving, then in London, with whom he had no personal acquaintance, and invoked his good offices in inducing Murray to bring out an English edition of the work. The time being peculiarly unpropitious, Murray declined to undertake the venture, but Irving found another publisher, and himself introduced the volume in the most favorable manner, with a dedicatory letter of his own. While passing the book through the press the publisher observed in this poem the lines:

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and assured Irving that he could not offer a work containing such a statement to a British public. It was impossible to consult the author, three thousand miles away, and Irving ventured to change the objectionable passage so that it should read:

There is no reason to believe that Mr. Bryant ever resented the liberty or regarded it otherwise than as an act of friendly intervention; but some years later William Leggett, who had long been Mr. Bryant's editorial associate in the office of the Evening Post, but had severed his connection with that paper, made a virulent assault upon Irving in the Plaindealer on account of the change he had made, even going so far as to intimate that both that and his dealings with one of his own works were dictated by mean sycophancy and cowardice on Irving's part.—Editor.]

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SONG OF MARION'S MEN.

[Pg 102]

HAIL COLUMBIA.

By JOSEPH HOPKINSON.

(First sung at the Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, in 1798.)

[This song was inspired by the troubles with France, which threatened but did not actually result in open war. For convenience it is classed with the ballads and lyrics of the Revolution, to the actors in which its references point, though, strictly speaking, it belongs to none of the groups into which this collection is divided.—Editor.]

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THE WAR OF 1812-15

TRUXTON'S VICTORY

(Action between the Constellation and the Insurgente, 9 Feb., 1799.)

[This song and the one that follows it relate to a naval conflict of 1799, during the troubles which for a time threatened war between France and the United States. As the second of the two songs was written in 1813, and both were much sung at that period, it has been thought best to present both of them where one properly belongs, namely, among the poems of the last war with Great Britain.—Editor.]

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THE "CONSTELLATION" AND THE "INSURGENTE."

(Action of 9 February, 1799.)

1813.

[Pg 113]

THE WASP'S FROLIC.

(Action of 18 October, 1812.)

[From "Naval Songster," 1815.]

[Pg 115]

"CONSTITUTION" AND "GUERRIÈRE."

(Action of 19 August, 1812.)

[Pg 118]

THE "UNITED STATES" AND "MACEDONIAN."

(Action 25 of October, 1812.)

1813.

[Pg 121]

THE "UNITED STATES" AND "MACEDONIAN."

(Action of 25 October, 1812.)

1813.

[Pg 126]

PERRY'S VICTORY.

(Battle of Lake Erie, 10 September, 1813.)

[This ballad, clumsy as it is in construction, was very popular in its day, mainly, perhaps, because of the peculiarly dramatic character of the action it was written to celebrate.—Editor.]

1813.

[Pg 128]

YANKEE THUNDERS.

1813.

[Pg 131]

YE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND.

[This rudely constructed song—evidently composed in the forecastle, where poets are not exigent in the matter of rhymes, is included in this collection, notwithstanding its imperfections, because of the hold it took upon the minds of patriotic people. It was still a favorite song in many parts of the country as late as 1859, and it is valuable as a reflection of the spirit in which the War of 1812-14 was regarded by those who fought it.—Editor.]

1813.

[Pg 135]

COMRADES! JOIN THE FLAG OF GLORY.

1813.

[Pg 136]

OUR NAVY.

1813.

[Pg 138]

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.

By FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.