Women, Pianos and The American Civil War With a Video Clip, Some Humor and a Comment

How Musical “Battles” Connected Women to the Violence of Civil War, WQXR radio weblog

To paraphrase historian David McCullough, the Civil War was fought in 10,000 places, from Valverde, New Mexico, and Tullahoma Tennessee, to St. Alban’s, Vermont, and Fernandina on the Florida coast. The battle locations were many, but the conflict was alive beyond the battlefields, too – including parlors across the nation.  The American Civil War saw an explosion of popularity for battle pieces — compositions that invited those on the home front to imagine the events of the war through music, thanks to the power of sonic imagery. They became a regular component of life at the homefront for many (mainly northern), white women. 

In an article for the Summer 2016 volume of 19th Century Music,  Professor Elizabeth Morgan of St. John’s University examines the role these pieces played on the homefront. She traces the genre’s popularity back to 18th-century Czech composer Frantisek Kotzwara’s Battle of Prague.

  “Easily the best-known keyboard work in the genre during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Battle of Prague would inspire American works on the Revolutionary, Mexican-American, and Civil wars, often serving as a template for these later pieces, which mimicked its motives, form, and narrative trajectory,” she writes. 

At the height of their popularity, battle pieces and their performance threw into relief several curious relationships and commentaries on gender. Society then, as it still does now, has a tendency to gender instruments.  While 19th-century Americans were theoretically fine with women playing the piano, battle pieces drew more complicated feelings. Morgan cites several satirical references to Kotzwara’s piece in contemporary popular fiction by authors including Edgar Allen Poe and Mark Twain. But mocking Prague wasn’t limited to Americans — Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler’s short story "Wanted, A Wife,"  which includes a protagonist who hates nothing more than a woman at the piano, all because his grandmother played Prague constantly in his youth, and “he had neither forgotten nor forgiven her.” 

Why was it such a focus of derision during a time when battle music was one of the most popular genres for American music publishers? Morgan thinks that, for some, it may have lain in a distaste of program music, where sound is used to represent hard concepts. 

Then there’s the physical embodiment of the performance. Quoting Twain, Morgan argues that it was the “mimetic relationship between battle music and wartime fighting that lent the genre to satire.” The American satirist wrote of the pianist's body, with all the contortions and movements that come with mapping the violence of war on a battlefield onto the violence of music at the piano.

Third, Morgan writes that there could have been discomfort in the way the genre merged public and private life. Battle pieces were considered compositions for women, and by their very nature required performers to imagine themselves in the grisliest of situations. But for many in the 19th-century, this was incomprehensible. “This identification was not always received warmly,” explains Morgan, “but instead that an audience might laugh at a young female performer, implying that she took herself too seriously.”

Wartime has historically opened employment opportunities to members of society that would have normally been denied them. For example, it was increasingly acceptable for (white) women to be nurses on the front. (The same cannot be said for female doctors). And during the 1860s, there was a surge of women writing music. “Hundreds of female composers published works on topics related to the war,” Morgan writes, and while they weren’t all battle pieces, it was still a significant social shift. “Just as the war made it socially acceptable to be a nurse for soldiers at the front, it also expanded the bounds of propriety to include being a published woman composer.” 

Since it’s program music, Morgan argues that women composers brought a different perspective to the table. For example, Laura Hastings Hatch wrote Battle of the Wilderness in 1869, well after the war’s conclusion — which is significant because, at the time, battle pieces were often published shortly after the events depicted. Morgan also points out that while the genre often illustrated clear victories, the Battle of the Wilderness was a violent affair without a clear victor. The sheet music’s cover, too, lacks victorious imagery; it contains instead broken bodies and tools of destruction. There’s no glory in that music, and Morgan theorizes gender may have had a hand in shaping that perspective. 

It is difficult to imagine that anyone felt the casualties of the bloodiest war in American history more acutely than women at home, she argues, ”many of whom waited for soldiers who didn’t return or who came home permanently altered.” That it proves hard to find a recording of Wilderness, a battle piece that stands in stark contrast to so many others of its day, is maddening.

“War is hell.” That phrase (supposedly) first uttered by William Tecumseh Sherman tells us that the glories of the battlefield and the romance of war are an illusion, a sham. Trauma and violence don’t just stay on the front lines — it made its way back home too, affecting even the day’s entertainment. White women, through music, found themselves tethered to the theaters of war, with some taking advantage of the creative opportunities that arose during the chaos. If anything, these piano “battles” teach us that, whether home or away, it’s nearly impossible to escape the grip of a Republic of Suffering.

There is a reader's comment at the end of the post at WQXR. 

Text Source: WQXR

New and Noteworthy---Music Along The Rapidan River: The War, The Soldiers and Their Music December 1863-April 1864

Music Along The Rapidan: Civil War Soldiers, Music and Community During Winter Quarters, Virginia, James A. Davis, University of Nebraska Press, 347 pp., 31 b/w illustration, bibliographic notes, bibliography, index, $45.00.

From The Publisher:  In December 1863, Civil War soldiers took refuge from the dismal conditions of war and weather. They made their winter quarters in the Piedmont region of central Virginia: the Union’s Army of the Potomac in Culpeper County and the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia in neighboring Orange County. For the next six months the opposing soldiers eyed each other warily across the Rapidan River.

In Music Along the Rapidan James A. Davis examines the role of music in defining the social communities that emerged during this winter encampment. Music was an essential part of each soldier’s personal identity, and Davis considers how music became a means of controlling the acoustic and social cacophony of war that surrounded every soldier nearby.

Music also became a touchstone for colliding communities during the encampment—the communities of enlisted men and officers or Northerners and Southerners on the one hand and the shared communities occupied by both soldier and civilian on the other. The music enabled them to define their relationships and their environment, emotionally, socially, and audibly.

James A. Davis is a professor of musicology at the School of Music at the State University of New York at Fredonia. He is the author of Bully for the Band! The Civil War Letters and Diary of Four Brothers in the 10th Vermont Infantry Band and his articles have been published in numerous journals including Journal of Military History, American Music, and Nineteenth Century Studies.

Blurb: “Delightfully readable. A complete study of the Civil War where it meets music and national life.”—Randal Allred, professor of English at Brigham Young University–Hawaii

CWL:  Davis introduces the book with material on music and communities during the Civil War era. Chapter One: Winter Quarters in Virginia, 1863-1864; Chapter 2: Music and the Community of Soldiers; Chapter 3: Music and the Military Community: Chapter 4 Military Balls and the Officer's Community; Chapter 5: Music and the Religious Community; Chapter 6: Brass Bands and the Intersection of Musical Communities. He concludes the book with a discussion of the impact of 1863-1863winter quarters on these communities of soldiers and the war itself.

The illustrations are somewhat unique; they consist of soldiers with their instruments and the building and tents were the music was performed.  The index reveals that the most frequently discussed topics are:  brass bands, civilians, communities and audiences, military camps as homes, the various types of music and lyrics performed and the relationships that are revealed; and women. The troops of Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and Virginia are frequently used as examples.

At the price of $45, readers may wish to request the book through a local library, either for its addition to the collection or borrowing it through inter-library loan.  Of course, libraries accept donations to purchase particular items and donors are often the first borrowers.

New and Noteworthy: Battle Hymns: The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War

Battle Hymns: The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War, Christian McWhirter, The University of North Carolina Press, 352 pages, $39.95.

From the publisher: 

Music was everywhere during the Civil War. Tunes could be heard ringing out from parlor pianos, thundering at political rallies, and setting the rhythms of military and domestic life. With literacy still limited, music was an important vehicle for communicating ideas about the war, and it had a lasting impact in the decades that followed. Drawing on an array of published and archival sources, Christian McWhirter analyzes the myriad ways music influenced popular culture in the years surrounding the war and discusses its deep resonance for both whites and blacks, South and North.

Though published songs of the time have long been catalogued and appreciated, McWhirter is the first to explore what Americans actually said and did with these pieces. By gauging the popularity of the most prominent songs and examining how Americans used them, McWhirter returns music to its central place in American life during the nation's greatest crisis. The result is a portrait of a war fought to music.                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                                                              Readers' Reviews: 

"With facts, figures, and firsthand accounts, Mr. McWhirter powerfully demonstrates the important role played by music in the lives of Johnny Reb, Billy Yank, and the folks back home during the war between the states. As a longtime student and performer of Civil War songs I am excited to have this valuable and informative resource available."  Bobby Horton, multi-instrumentalist and composer

"A stirring patriotic air almost never failed to restore Civil War soldiers or renew them to their respective causes but the soundscapes of war offered more than inspiration or escapism from a brutal and tedious military existence. Those in the ranks and back home found their political voice through song and ballad, and no historian has done more than Christian McWhirter to open our ears to Civil War music as a powerful expression of political action. Neither side, as McWhirter brilliantly reveals, was just 'whistling Dixie' in camp or on the battlefield, as their music pulsed with the rhythmic melodies of revolution and revenge." - Peter S. Carmichael, Fluhrer Professor of History, Gettysburg College

"In this marvelous study of the production and consumption of music of the Civil War, Christian McWhirter enriches our understanding of the soundscapes of America's bloodiest conflict. It is a deeply researched and beautifully executed examination of a curiously understudied aspect of the War."  Mark M. Smith, author of Listening to Nineteenth-Century America

Battle Hymns is engagingly written and creatively researched. Over 50 contemporary periodicals and over 70 newspapers were mined to give the reader a rich sense of the importance of music to daily life in this era. Some might wish the author had delved deeper into the psychological and spiritual appeals of various texts and tunes; but the author excels at showing us how music altered people’s consciousness in this bloodiest of wars. Students of the Civil War will learn much from reading this excellent book. Randy Finley, Professor of History at Georgia Perimeter College. Review from Civil War Monitor

CWL---An Era When All Music Was Live Music, Part Two

Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: An Overview of Music of the Civil War Era, Bruce C. Kelly, pp. 1-36 in Bugle Resounding: Music And Musicians Of The Civil War Era, Bruce C. Kelley and Mark A. Snell, editors, University of Missouri Press, 260 pp., illustrations, index, notes, 2004, $44.00.

Music was an essential element of American culture during the Civil War era. The impact of the war upon public, social music, theatre, concerts, and church music was felt dramatically in the South as the battlefront neared major cities. New Orleans and Nashville fell to the North in April 1862, Vicksburg and Chattanooga in 1863, Atlanta and Mobile in 1864. In these urban centers, theatre and concerts were curtailed during the attacks and afterward for a variety of reasons. Federal military music and concerts by military bands were generally the only notes struck after the occupation. Cities that passed through the war without suffering damage, Houston and Kansas City, received refugees and a surge in musical activities. Women composers on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line garnered success with patriotic songs and polkas. Both Sanitary Commission and Christian Commission fairs held dances which required event specific compositions that were either sung by choruses or performed by bands and orchestras.

African-American music and musicians continued to thrive in workplaces and churches. The first publication of slave songs appeared in 1861. By 1867 collections of these songs began to appear. The war and emancipation provided great opportunities for black musicians who continued their traditional roles as repositories of work, faith and folk culture. In the camp life of Black soldiers slave plantation music met Northern urban music. Kelley cites several scholarly works that focus on sinful and spiritual tunes in Black folk music. White transcriptionists attempted to faithfully notate traditional black music but were stymied by the vocal techniques used by slaves with a variety of Dixie-Afro dialects. At times white transcribers transferred into the music their own attitudes about life, work, faith and black identity.

Military bands were organized by regiment early in the war but quickly migrated into brigade and division bands. Some regimental bands, such as the 14th Connecticut, were so good, were called upon to play as the units advanced or retreated. Kelley cites the work of this Connecticut band during the retreat in the face of Jackson's assault at Chancellorsville. The band's performance was such that the 14th Connecticut's brigade rallied on the band as it played. R.E. Lee stated in 1864 that he did not believe an army could exist without music. Several histories of Civil War military music have been written and several histories of regimental and brigade bands now exist. Accounts of bands surrendering at Appomattox, passing through four years of war, and continuing as they return to their local communities are in the literature. Technical innovations in instrument construction and instruction marked the war. Kelly cites the 1860 census as reporting that 21,000 pianofortes were manufactured and probably 30 a day were sold through the Union before secession. The banjo moved from artisan workshops to industrial production. There was a surge in amateur education through book instruction for stringed instruments and drums.

Sheet music production existed in most major cities before the war and only slowed in the South as paper became expensive and scarce. The collection of wartime sheet music, songsters, and song books by wealthy families became a trend and many of these collections now reside in academic libraries. Kelly agrees with other researchers that the Civil War was a laboratory for musicians, composers and entertainment promoters, not unlike it was a laboratory for medicine, communication, railroads, manufacturing and banking.

Top Image Source: Getty Images

Second Image Source: 3rd Michigan band, Corbis Images