Hearing the Civil War: "Music of the Civil War"

Various types of music played key roles throughout the Civil War from the fife and drum to the bugle calls which rallied the soldiers and directed them on the parade ground and in battle. There were sentimental and patriotic songs which soldiers sung in camp in order to pass the time while remembering the homes they left behind.

There are numerous activities which will expose students to some of the most popular sounds of battle and songs of camp life, thereby bringing the emotions of the period to the forefront. The following example provides combines the use of low tech audio CDs with the high tech Internet.

First, the teacher can purchase any number of Civil War music CDs. Groups such as the 97^th Regimental String Band, Acoustic Shadows of the Blue and Gray and David Kincaid provide an excellent collection of some of the most popular songs of the period while Camp Chase Fifes and Drums is a nationally known fife and drum group with three CDs from which to choose. Some of these websites even provide sample clips from some of their more popular songs.

If you have access to iTunes, then you can search for Civil War era music. If you search for 119th NYSV within iTunes, you should get a list of songs from the 119th New York Field Music. These songs provide not only some of the more popular marching tunes of the period but also some of the camp duties musicians would have been required to play.

Second, search the Internet for the lyrics to several popular songs. The website Poetry and Music of the War Between the States has lyrics to many period songs. Then you can divide the class into several different groups, perhaps one Union and one Confederate, and assign each group a particular song. Each group can learn to sing their song and discuss the words as they relate to the context of war.

Finally, provide the entire class with the words to "Home, Sweet Home.” This is a tune which both sides of the war would have known and sung. Students can then talk about the commonalties among all soldiers, such as missing the comforts of home and the companionship of loves ones.

Using Photographs from the LOC

As many of you know, the Library of Congress has a website called Selected Civil War Photographs. This page makes browsing the photographs easy because they have a Search feature, a Subject browse, or you can look at photos from each year of the War. There is also information about Understand and Working with the Collection.

One of my favorites is the "Does The Camera Ever Lie" link. On this page it begins to talk about how photographers of the Civil War era changed or manipulated captions in photographs in order to achieve a more dramatic effect. This page provides two links: The Case of the Confused Identy and The Case of the Moved Body Let's look at the one about The Case of the Moved Body.

The photograph (Figure 1) shows a very famous picture by Alexander Gardner of a dead Confederate solider in Devil's Den shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg. According to research by William Frassanito (1975), Gardner actually moved this dead soldier some 50 yards up a hill in order to capture the now famous image (p. 191) . The LOC pages describe the two images and provide an analysis of how they are similar. But how can we let our students to some analysis of these photos?

Figure 1:

Here's how: On this same website download the same two images from The Case of the Moved Body in the large RAW TIFF format. If you have access to a projector, show the images on the screen. Then using a paint program such as GIMP or Paint Shop Pro, open the images and begin to look at them in more detail. Now, use the magnifying glass of your paint program to zoom in on the images. The TIFF format of the photo allows you to zoom in to the photo with higher maginifications without distorting the image. So, at these higher resolutions, you can look at the face and clothes of the dead soldier and make comparisons.

In addition to making comparisions, you can also become a crime scene insvestigator by looking for more clues. So, super slueths, using the photograph of the soldier in the "sniper's nest" can you locate his cartridge box, his hat or a blanket? What other things can you find?

More later.

-------
References:
Frassanito, W. (1975). Gettysburg: A Journey in Time. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co.