Regimental Bands in the Civil War

Marching Brass Bands were new to the musical scene at the time of the Civil War and they performed in ways that seem odd and out of tune with our times. Brass bands of that era were part of the great shift from a "prismatic" to an "urban/ industrial" society. A prismatic society is analogous to an actual prism. Just as a prism is rotated slightly and a new color appears, so, too, in a prismatic society, the behavior of individuals can shift and change without regard to the situation at stake or the expectation of others. It is a world of interactional surprises. People living in such a culture are simply not subject to the role segmentation that makes life bearable in modern complex bureaucratized society. All of this means that prismatic people enjoy a wide range of options in what roles they can play and how they can play them. It is this feature of the prismatic circumstances of the Civil War era that is reflected in the culture and behavior of Bands and musicians during that time, and wherein culture is a kaleidoscope that can suddenly take a different shape and content. The South was still rooted in this "prismatic" stage (Rip-2s). The North was farther along the road to modernity, though it too retained much of the prismatic ethos. In a prismatic society social institutions overlap: family norms mix with political usages, economic with religious, and so forth. In them individual behavior is volatile and unstable-shifting quickly from one institutional expression to others. During these fleeting years of transition, persons were free of the stifling conformity demanded in a "folk" society, but not yet subject to the constraints to emerge in modern organizational society. The impact of a prismatic environment can be reflected in all aspects of culture, including bands and music. This is so because all role performances are less scripted than in the urban/organized world, and there is greater latitude for self-expression. Moreover, in the prismatic world appearances are poor guidelines to behavior. In short, things may seldom be what they seem in a prismatic society. Thus, when Robert E. Lee referred to his Union foes as "Those people" rather than as "the enemy" it was more than just a Southern gentleman speaking, and his remark did not mean he was inclined to kill fewer Yankees. Lee was merely speaking prismatically. On the other hand, when Sherman said, "I will make Georgia howl," he meant precisely that. Similarly, when a thirteen year old bugle boy, who had been shot in the head with an arrow, shot the Indian who put it there and took his scalp, it was more than a kid playing cowboy and Indian. Likewise, when a Confederate Band marched onto the battlefield at Gettysburg and entertained friend and foe with waltzes, polkas and two-- steps, it was not a crazy impulse, it was prismatic behavior (Leinbach). During pauses in battles, Yankee and Rebel Bands would gather on opposite sides of a river and engage in "battles of the Bands" after which they swapped coffee, sugar, tobacco, etc. moving the goodies back and forth on little sail boats made for the occasion (Furgurson). In the prismatic world, any situation can be easily and quickly redefined as something quite different from what it started out to be. Thus, enemies can suddenly become friends, lines of advancing and defending troops can become an audience, a child can become a ruthless killer, all set to the music of a Regimental Band. In prismatic communities, the main differentiations are between the very young and very old, and between males and females. Children are but miniaturized versions of larger people and act as if they were grown-ups, just as in the cases of the thirteen year old scalper; or the little girls who helped their mother, Rose Greenhow, in the business of espionage; or twelve year old Fred Grant (later a General himself), who tagged along with his Dad, Ulysses, as he battled Rebel armies. At the visual level, consider the prismatic little people in Images 1 and 2. …