National Republican., 1883-05-21
Lyrics That Died With the Struggle Of War and
Others That Will Always Live
"Ths bonnie Blue Flag" Albert Pixies
"Dixic," and n Lot More.

The despots heel e on thy shores
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland
Avenge thy patriotic gore
That fecked the streets Of Baltimore
anu O' NJ MaryandI GsiU fuSfy Ny Maryland X fSiSdi
MARYLAND at that time trembed in the
balance between loyalty to the union and Sc
cession, and this song was intended to fire the
hearts of the people, and win them over to
the side of Virginia, which had just cast her
fortunes with the new confederacy. 1t i'm
medistely became popular, and was sung in
every rebel camp from the Potomac to the
Mississippi but Maryland remained stead
fast to the union, despite this powerful ap-
peal.
The lyric quality of the southern song.
writers during the war was conspicuous.
Their songs were animated by the intensest
local patriotism, and breathed the fercest
spirit of war.
Albert Pike, who was once thought to be
the coming great American poet, wrote song
quite as popular as "My Maryland" and
adapted to the tune of "Dixie." The open
ing verse is string enough;
"southrons, hear your country call you'll
Upl lest worse than death befall you ,
To arms To arms To arms, In Dixieb
Lol all the beacon fires are lighted,
Let all hearts be now united !
To arm To armsl To arms in Dixie.
Advance the flag Of Dixie
Hurrah hurrah
For Dixie's land we take our stand,
And live and die for Dixie.
To arms To arms
And conquer peace for Dixiei
To arnsl To arms
And conquer peace for DixieV'
The battle of Manassas, or Bull Run, as it
was known at the north, called out many
stirring poems calculated to renew the cour-
age of the southern people, and fire them to
renewed exertion for independence.
Among the most graphic Of these, and with
q certain grim humor in it was one entitled,
Flight of Doodles." A few sample verses
must suffice:
1 como from old Manassas, with pocket full OF
/ killed forty Yankees with single barreled
1t don't make a niff.a-s -stiGerence to neither you
Big yankee little yankee all run or die.
saw old Fuss-and- Feather Scott, twenty miles
His horses stu stuck gI their ears and You ought to
But II don't mako niff-a. stifreance to neither
Old Scott fed like the devil. boys; root, hog, or
die.
And so on for quantity.
"The Bonnie Blue Flag" was one of the
most singable lyrics Of the war, and was i'm
mensely popular, even in the north, by reason
of its beautiful air. 1t tells how when our
rights were threatened" the cry arose for the
Bonnie Blue Flag "that bears a single star !"
and recites the secession Of state after state,
and concludes as follows:
Then cheer, boys, cheer; raise the joyous shout,
For Arkansas and North Carolina now have ootn
gone OUT
And let another rousing cheer for Tennessee be
The single star of the Bonnie Blug Flag has
grown 10 be eleven.
This fixes the date of this song 1t was
written after the secession of the eleven
states had been completed and before there
had been much fighting.
Later on, when the Congress and Cumber-
land had been sunk by the rebel iron clad
Manassas, o poem appeared entitled "The
Turtle" which, although highly humorous,
did not have large circulation in the north,
whose people failed to see any humor in the
performahce of a vessel that threatened the
entire American navy with destruction. At
this distance of time, however, it will be
better appreciated, and as 1t is most likely
new to the majority of our readers, we repro
duce it entire:
THE TURTLE.
Caesar afioat with his fortunes,
And oil the wcrd egog
Straining Its eyes
At thing that lios
In the water, like a log.
It's q weasel! a whale
see Its tail
It's a porpoisc polywogl
Tarnation! its TURTLE
And blast my bones and skin,
My hearties, sink her,
or else you'll think her
regular terror-pin.
The frigate poured broadsidei
The bombs they whistled we'll,
But-hit Old Nick
With a sugar stickl
They didn't phase her shell!
PHI from the creatures larboard-
And dipping along the water
A bullet hissed
From wreath of mist
Into a Doodles quarter.
Raj, from the creatures starboard-
RIP from his ugly snorter
And the Congress and
The Cumberland
Sunk, and nothing-shorter
Now here's to you, Virginia,
And you are bound 10 win
By your rate of bobbing round
And your way Of pitchin' in
For you are a cross
On the old sea horse
And regular terror-pin.
The poet discreetly dropped the subject
there 1t would not have been so fiattering
TO southern pride TO have told how imme-
diately after the sinking of the old wooden
war ships the Turtle" encountered a cheese
box and had It's she'll so badly broken that it
steamed into Norfolk harbor and never after
made a fighting demonstration
Still later on in the war, and when Stone
wall Jackson's name had become known the
world over, appeared poem it cannot be
called a song, that was exceedingly popular
il was entitled "Stonewall Jackson's Way
1t is descrptively as graphic as anything the
war produced. Here is a passage from it;
We see him noW-the old slouched hat,
Cooked DER his eye askew
The shrewd, dry smile, the speech so pat
so calm, so blunt, so true.
The " Blue Light Elder knows 'em well
Says he, That's Banks-hes fond of shell;
Lord save his soul; we'll give him" well,
That's Stonewall Jackson's way.
Silence ground arms kneel all caps of!
Old Blue Lights going to pray
srangle tho fool that dares TO scoffl
Attention it's his way.
Appealing from his native sod,
In lorna pauperts to God
LAY bare thine armsIstretch forth thy rod
Amen" That's stonewalls way.
But of all the poems of the war produced
on either side nothing, in our Judgment
equaled the poem entitled "Call All Cal
Aill" which appeared early in the
war In the Rockingham (Va.) Register. II
breathes the fiery spirit of war. 1t was not
an appeal TO patriotic pride to fight for home
and freside. 1t has the wildcat and tiger
spring in it, and we venture that the hand
that held the pen that wrote 1t handled some