Morrissey and the Russian Sailor
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-11-22

Day 249 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series"

Why is this song in Sandburg's "Lumberjacks, Loggers, and Shanty-Boys" chapter. At first glance it does not fit. Many lumberjacks were of Irish descent and brought their songs with them, which is way this song has ended up in many logging collections.

Sandburg writes: "A biography titled "Life of John Morrissey, the Irish Boy Who Fought His Way to Fame and Fortune" tells about a prize fighter, gambler, politician who became state senator and Member of Congress. His big fights were in the 1850’s and he defeated Thompson, the Yankee Clipper, the Benicia boy, in the squared circle, as related in this song. He was a "Paddy and a ring hero, too, as related. But sporting authorities consulted on the point fail to find that he ever planted his knuckles in a Russian sailors face nor fought any such thirty-eight-round contest as here described. Yet the song delivers the atmosphere of the old-time bare-fisted ring fight.

"It is presented here as sung by M. C. Dean, of Virginia, Minnesota, author of "The Flying Cloud," a collection of lumberjack and Great Lakes songs and American ballads. On the currency of this and similar ballads Franz Rickaby wrote this eloquent and informative note: "In the logging camp the hegemony in song belonged to the Irish. Although the Scotch and French-Canadian occur occasionally, the Irish were dominant, and the Irish street-song was the pattern upon which a liberal portion of the shanty-songs were made. Irishmen sailed the seas of the world. In the armies of England they fought against Russia and died on the fields of Indian insurrection. In Canada and the United States, whither they migrated in hordes, they fought wherever there was fighting. And in this New World those of them who were thrifty and provident laid foundations of homes; and those who were not, didn't. But whatever they did, they made and sang songs; and wherever they went roving, they took them along. Thus it was that the shanties rang with songs of ships and piracy, of American battle charges, and of prize-fights in far-lying ports of the world; of charging the heights of Alma, of dying in India for Britannia and Britannia's Queen, and of sailing the lakes with red iron ore of all these, as well as of harvesting the mighty pine."

FURTHER NOTE: John Morrissey was born in Ireland in 1831 but was raised in New York and apparently went to California at the time of the Gold Rush. In 1852 he gained fame as a boxer by defeating George Thomson. The climax of Morrissey's career came in 1858, when he defeated champion John C. Heenan and promptly retired. In the years that followed his gambling resort in Saratoga Springs proved very successful, and Morrissey was twice elected to congress. He died in 1878.