"We'll Sing to Abe Our Song": Sheet Music about Lincoln, Emancipation, and the Civil War, from the Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana

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The sheet music in We'll Sing to Abe Our Song provides an opportunity to examine how songwriters reflected and influenced popular sentiment in nineteenth-century America while practicing a variety of historical thinking skills. Tributes to Abraham Lincoln and assessments of his presidential legacy, songs supporting the Union cause, and depictions of American symbols can be analyzed to reveal the ideas and attitudes of this era.

Chronological Thinking

The music featured in this collection spans Abraham Lincoln's presidential career. Creating a timeline of these pieces, ranging from his first presidential campaign in 1860 to the tributes that appeared after his death, allows one to track the evolution of Lincoln's persona and public support. Although the language referring to Lincoln in this collection is almost always positive, it moves from celebrating his personal virtues (such as honesty) in his first presidential campaign, to supporting him throughout the Civil War, and finally commemorating him as a martyred hero. It also is possible to examine how songs describe many of Lincoln's presidential acts, including the Union draft and the Emancipation Proclamation as represented in songs such as "Sixty-Three is the Jubilee."

Cover Image from "Sixty-Three is the Jubilee."

• How do the different descriptions of Lincoln reflect the state of the nation during a certain moment in time?

This collection can also be used to understand changes through time by providing the basis for a comparison with contemporary music. How is the content of the collection's songs different from the content of contemporary songs? What are the collection's songs about? What subjects are discussed in songs you hear today? Are many of today's songs written about political or historical events? How has the distribution and audience of music changed with time? What has influenced these changes?

Historical Comprehension: Public Reaction to Abraham Lincoln's Assassination

Hundreds of thousands of Americans travelled to Washington, D.C. in April 1865 to pay tribute to Abraham Lincoln. One individual described the scene in a letter found in Pioneering the Upper Midwest, ca. 1820-1910:

It is sickening to pass the White House and adjacent Departments so recently all gorgeous with flags and all manner of festive devices blazing with many colored lights, and reverberating with triumphant music, and witness the change to the sable emblems of woe. It is sadder than these outside changes in other cities, for just behind that draped wall lies the mangled body of our sainted, martyred President, and this visible presence adds greatly to the sorrow and gloom . . . Then the presence of the thousands of Freed-people who regarded Abraham Lincoln as their Moses, adds to the impressiveness of the scene.

Page 86 [Transcription]
Radisson And Groseilliers In Wisconsin [Transcription]

A search on Lincoln and funeral across the American Memory collections provides an overview of how this tragedy affected the nation, through items such as this. In We'll Sing to Abe Our Song, searches on terms such as funeral, martyr, and memorium yield songs that reflect a variety of reactions to Lincoln's death. For example, "A Gloom is Cast O'er All the Land" calls for vengeance, "Oh nation rouse! Avenge the blow! . . . To traitors now no mercy show," while "Dirge: Our Deeply Lamented Martyred President" offers a nation's condolences to Lincoln's widow and proclaims:

Cover Image from "Toll the Bell Mournfully."

Lincoln falls! the Union stands! Saviour of our Land and Laws! Dies the Martyr! lives the cause. Lincoln dies! the Good and Great! Waves our Flag o'er ev'ry State!

The American flag also appears in pieces such as "The Flag is at Half Mast" and "Toll the Bell Mournfully." What does the flag symbolize?

• Based on first-hand accounts such as Jane Grey Swisshelm's letter, do these songs accurately portray the nation's reaction to Lincoln's assassination? What aspects of this reaction do the songwriters draw upon?
• What other topics appear in these songs besides Lincoln's assassination? Why?
• Why do these songs call for a national reaction?
• What roles might these songs have played in the nineteenth century? How would they have served the public at the time?

Cover of "The Flower from Lincoln's Grave."

On the minstrel stage, songs such as "Massa Linkum's Boy" emphasized one facet of Lincoln's legacy. "The Flower from Lincoln's Grave" explained: Hanging on my wall with its kind and gentle face, Is de picture ob de one who freed de slave. An' in a box ob soil I brought from my ole massa's place, Grows de flower dat I pluck'd from Lincoln's grave,

• What does "The Flower from Lincoln's Grave" suggest African Americans felt about Lincoln's assassination?
• What is the symbolism of the flower from the president's grave growing in soil from a plantation? How does this image link two historic events?
• What aspects of Lincoln's legacy are minstrel songs an effective vehicle for discussing? Why? What sentiments about Lincoln are minstrel songs suited to express?

Historical Analysis and Interpretation: Representations of the Union Draft

The Union draft for the Civil War appears in a number of different song styles. In addition to the "hundred thousand more" pieces discussed in the U.S. History section, the call for Union volunteers appears in songs such as "Strike for the Right," "Mount, Boys, Mount," "The Good Old Union Wagon," and "Northmen, Awake," which proclaims: Strike, till the last armed foe expires! Strike, for your altars and your fires! Strike, for the green graves of your sires! God and your native land!

Cover of "The Good Old Union Wagon."

• What do these songs suggest about the reasons people gave for fighting the Confederacy?
• Do you think the motivations expressed in these songs were the real motivations for fighting?
• How effective do you think these songs were at rousing support for the draft and for the war?
• Did everyone in the Union support the draft?

Although the majority of pieces in this collection support the Union draft, an example of dissension appears in the comic song, "He's Gone to the Arms of Abraham":

Historical Issue-Analysis and Decision-Making: The Emancipation Proclamation

Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery in America and allowed African-American soldiers to enlist in the Union Army. A search on Emancipation Proclamation across the American Memory collections demonstrates that Lincoln's attempt to provide African Americans with both a motive and the means to join the fighting in the Civil War was seen as a threat to the morale and sanctity of the Union.

Ohio Congressman William Allen claimed in a February 2, 1863 speech to the House of Representatives (available in the African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920 collection) that white soldiers who answered Lincoln's earlier draft for the Union army "would never have incurred the hazards and sacrifices which they did if any such policy as that which has since been pursued, and is proposed by this bill, had been then proposed." Allen later adds:

It is not probable that commanding officers who permit . . . army wagons to be used to aid "contrabands" in their exodus from the South, while weary, exhausted white soldiers march on foot, would place the contrabands in the front ranks of the Army . . . or that a department of the Government that feeds, clothes, and provides so amply for fifty or sixty thousand of these persons, who, in the language of the President, "do nothing but eat," . . . would place the negro in any hazardous position for the purpose of shielding the white man from harm. . . .

Speech of the Hon. William Allen, of Ohio, on the Enlistment of Negro Soldiers,
African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920

• Of what is Allen accusing the commanding officers of the Army and the Government?
• How does Allen's quotation of the president portray the president?

Just as the Union draft songs reflected Lincoln's call for hundreds of thousands of white soldiers, the call to arms surrounding the Emancipation Proclamation often was answered on the minstrel stage. "Snolly-goster Ebenezer" asks, "If dar freedom is so dear, den why doesn't dey volunteer/ And help dar Fader Abe to end de war," while "The Darkies Rally" makes a different plea:

Den come on all ye Darkies unto Massa Linkum's camp, Whar we're all bound to go, An' we'll meet our ole Massas an we'll conquer dem or die, Dat we must do you know; We are all fur de Union ob Norf and Soufern States, But not hab de Union like it hab been before; Hab a Union freedom ober all our blessed lan, But wid slavery no more.

Cover Image from "The Darkies Rally."

More direct commitments to the Union army appear in songs such as "I'se on de Way," "The Black Brigade," and "We'll Fight for Uncle Abe" which declares, "Rip, Rap, Flip, Flap, Strap your knapsacks on your back/ For we're a gwine to Washington To fight for Uncle Abe."

Historical Research Capabilities

Some songs in this collection provide additional historical context to familiar events. For example, "The President's Hymn" was written in response to Lincoln's request for a general thanksgiving on November 26, 1863. The President's idea for a day of national thanksgiving (first held in 1861 for the District of Columbia) set the precedent for the current national holiday. The hymn celebrates the nation's prosperity and freedom with such descriptions as:

For the Nation's wide table, o'erflowingly spread,
Where the many have feasted and all have been fed,
With no bondage, their God-given rights to enthral,
But Liberty guarded by Justice for all:

• Why is the notion of "no bondage" particularly relevant to this song and the year in which it was written?
  

Cover of "The Shooting of Our Presidents."

Many of the songs in this collection are almost immediate reactions to Abraham Lincoln's death. A few pieces, however, place the event in a larger historical context and provide an opportunity to understand the evolution of Lincoln's legacy. Paul Dresser's "Lincoln, Grant & Lee, or, The war is over many years" groups the President with the army generals of both sides of the Civil War while "The Shooting of Our Presidents" contextualizes Lincoln's assassination, as the first of three tragedies to strike the executive office. How does the grouping of these men in "Lincoln, Grant & Lee" reinforce its claim that "Desolation, want and mis'ry, all are buried in the past"? How do the messages of both these songs differ from the claims made in the other pieces describing the assassination?

This collection also leads to a number of research questions regarding sheet music in nineteenth-century America. For example, the introduction to "The Patchwork Song" describes how songs were "placed along on the railings." Does this placement refer to a public display of musical pieces? How did people use and value this music? An investigation of different types of sheet music can examine the pieces within this and other American Memory collections, such as Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets, African-American Sheet Music, 1850-1920, Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920, and Music for the Nation, 1870-1885.