Favorite Period Music

[Boyd Miles]

An 1857 song you know and have sung all your life

[Pvt Schnapps]

W. S. Lincoln describes soldiers of the 34th Massachusetts receiving a new clothing issue and singing "Oh Dear What Can The Matter Be" as they burned their old threads. Somewhere else I read that the same song was played or sung after military funerals, while marching back from the cemetery.

[hanktrent]

An 1857 song you know and have sung all your life

Different tune in the period, though. I discovered the hard way at a Christmas event that the period tune does harmonize with the modern tune.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Rufus]

You mean songs like In the Merry Month of May and Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair?

Actually Silas I was leaning more towards Some Folks and Way Down in Ca-ai-ro.

[Violinist]

My Favorites:

A' Rovin
All Quiet Along the Potomac
Angel Band
Ash Grove
Auld Lang Syne
Aura Lee
Beautiful Dreamer
Banks of the Ohio
Battle Cry of Freedom
Battle Hymn of the Republic
Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms
Bile Dem Cabbage Down
Blackest Crow
Black Velvet Band
Bonnie Blue Flag
Buffalo Gals
Cindy
Cockles and Mussels
Cumberland Gap
Dives and Lazarus
Dixie
Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes
Evelina
Gentle Annie
Girl I Left Behind
Glendy Burk
Goober Peas
Green Grows the Lilac
Gypsy Rover
Haul Away Joe
Hard Times Come Again No More
Ho! For California
Home, Sweet Home
Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair
Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier
Josephus Orange Blossum
Lakes of Pontchartrain
Li'l Liza Jane
Lock Lomond
Lorena
Minstrel Boy
Red Is the Rose
Rising of the Moon
Rose of Alabama
Rosin the Beau
Sally Goodin
Shady Grove
Shenandoah
Shepherd's Wife
Soldiers Joy
Somebody's Darling
Spanish Waltz
Suwannee River
Tom Dula
Vacant Chair
Wait For the Wagon
Wayfaring Stranger
Weeping, Sad and Lonely
What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor
When Johnny Comes Marching Home
Wild Rover
Will Ye Go, Lassie Go
Yankee Doodle
Yellow Rose of Texas

[DJ_Artillery]

I would just say that Southern Soldier, When Johnny Comes Marching home and Goober Peas were all attributed so late in the war they likely weren't sung by troops much during the war. GAR and Confed. post-war groups sure liked 'em.

[33rdaladrummer]

I would just say that Southern Soldier, When Johnny Comes Marching home and Goober Peas were all attributed so late in the war they likely weren't sung by troops much during the war. GAR and Confed. post-war groups sure liked 'em.

When Johnny Comes Marching Home was first published in 1863. I think it was wildly popular, at least with civilians, from 1863 to 1865. Goober Peas was first published in 1866, so you may be right about that one. When was Southern Soldier first published?

On the other hand, a song being published in 1861 didn't guarantee wartime popularity either. Availability doesn't necessarily translate into popularity.

Then you have all the sea chanteys popular with reenactors, but were they all popular with soldiers during the 1860s? And what about Minstrel Boy?

But I suppose this thread is about reenactors' favorite period music not favorite songs of 1861-1865.