Originally aired on March 14, 1997 - In part 133 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson says that the struggles of the 1860s acted as a catalyst in helping develop a unique style of American music. He discusses some of the songs of George F. Root, who wrote more tunes than any other composer.
#133 – Just before the Battle, Mother
In 1861, when the Union was falling apart and the country was about to go to war with itself, American music was struggling to get away from the thick crust of its European legacy. A few gifted songwriters had begun producing a new kind of music in the two decades prior to the civil war. Men like Stephen Collins Foster and Daniel Decatur Emmett introduced lively, tuneful melodies illustrative of life on the frontier and the plantation. Yet through the first half of the 19th Century, America remained a country whose national songs were created in another land and another age.
That changed dramatically in 1861 at the dissolution of the Union. With the war’s military and political urgencies, with its grand mixing of backgrounds and cultures, the North-South contest brought a need for songs not only of inspiration but of laughter and sorrow. Add to these factors the necessity on both sides to focus on the inner meaning of America, and it is small wonder that the Civil War generated more new songs than any other event in the history of the world.
On evenings in any army camp, lusty voices would strike up a tune around a fire or inside a tent. It would be echoed by voices far away. Confederate sang against Federal, and on occasion they sang together. Because music filled a motivational need, the struggle of the 1860s acted as a catalyst in helping develop an indigenous, all-American style so internationally known today.
George F. Root composed more Civil War music than any other tunesmith. No one better than this Chicago-based musician captured the fervor of the Union cause and created more stirring martial music than men could sing as they sat in camp or marched into battle. The most famous of Root’s scores of songs was The Battle Cry of Freedom. An astonishing 350,000 copies of sheet music for the tune were sold during the war.
Abolitionist Root was also highly patriotic. Even in his sentimental songs, he often inserted lines with sideline meaning. In one popular tune, he had Billy Yanks damn Peace Democrats in the North by asserting:
Tell the traitors all around you,
That their cruel words we know,
In every battle kill our soldiers,
By the help they give the foe.
Those lines appeared in an 1862 work that became one of Root’s most popular contributions. The title of the song was Just before the Battle, Mother. Like so many of Root’s compositions, it was written from the standpoint of a lonely Union soldier. The lines contain many sentiments. They reflect the soldiers’ deepest feelings: namely, longing for home and family. The song was also a reminder of how soldiers should feed. Thoughts of home, dreams of loved ones, planning for the day when they would be returning home for good, enabled men in the field to focus on something real and good, especially in the face of death.
The song with the tender title has simple thoughts:
Just before the battle, Mother,
I am thinking most of you,
While upon the field we’re watching,
With the enemy in view.
Comrades brave are ‘round me lying,
Filled with thoughts of home and God;
For well they know that on the morrow,
Some will sleep beneath the sod.
Then came the emotional chorus:
Farewell, Mother, you may never
Press me to your breast again;
But, Oh, you’ll not forget me, Mother,
If I’m numbered with the slain.
Such thoughts were so basically human that Southerners as well adopted the Northern song with equally strong feeling. After all, Just before the Battle, Mother touched a responsive nerve ending that was attached to almost every soldier’s heart.