The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1905-05-11
Daniel Decatur Emmett and "Dixie." {"

Daniel Decatur Emmett and "Dixie."
By q. c. DICKINSON.
Some one has said, "Let me write the
songs of nation and care not who
makes it's laws" .-
No doubt the inspiring strains OF "God
Save the King" "Dixie," and yankee
Doodle" have caused the tide of battleto
turn at critical moment and victory
won.
Col. James n. Sprague, Of Ohio, repre-
sents in one of his beautiful songs, my
Dear Ohio Home," young soldier
wounded and dying in the Orient and
longing for his faraway home on Lake
Erie. When President Mckinley first saw
it he was greatly wrought upon and said
it was the most pathetic song he ever
heard, and since then it has been called
the ex-President's fayorite song. Little
did the obscure Ohio boy, Dan Emmett,
imagine that his wonderful verses, would
enthuse thousands of his countrymen as
they boldly marched to face bayonets and
the cannon's mouth.
The Charleston Courier many years ago
in an editorial contended the song was
sung on the streets of New York eighty
wears before from the fact that wealthy
planter by the name of Dizzy owned q
large tract of land on Manhattan Island
and possessed many slaves who knew
various medleys and melodies which they
were wont to sing as they returned from
their days labor or in the streets of the
quarters"
Charles W. Habner, in his "War Poets
of the South and Confederate Campfire
Songs,' from facts at his command ex-
plodes this statement and says Emmett
composed the words in 1859 or go with
out applying any air, which was set to it
by Bryant OF some other orchestral lead
er. Emmett was "devil" and afterwards
foreman of village paper for two or
three years, then drove the band wagon
of circus for season in New York.
After one year he returned penniless to
his fathers home, who asked him how
much money he had saved up and being
answered, 'enot cent" the angered pere
told him he was not worth the salt he ate.
He again set out for the metropolis and
twenty years later it is related he strobe
into rehearsal of Bryant's minstrels
with manuscript in his pocket.
/ "Here's new walk round boys" he,
said. "What do you call it, DAM" "Dixie."
In short while the whole city took It
up. Rumsey and Newcomb's minstrel
troupe carried it to Charleston, s. G.,
where it held the boards for one week,
enthusing that quaint old city-th hot
bed of secessia-the city of Spanish infu-
ences, more like a Moorish town with low
stoops and brick aoors-than any one on !.
the American continent except the great
Cuban city-Havana" The negro boys
there were soon whistling it on every
street and in a short while it was the
popular martial air Of the cotton States.
In April or May 81 the writer was in the
old city by the sea and saw several COM
panies, among them that gallant corps,t the
Washington Light Infantry, composed of
the flower of chivalry, march forth with
screaming fife and throbbing drum"
under the martial strains of Dixie with
Palmetto flags proudly floating above
them, going to board the trains for camps
of instruction at Columbia, 8. c., and
Richmond, Va.
A few persons believed Dan Emmett
got his idea of "Dixie" from Mason and
Dixon's line and many others think that
it's author was Southern man, but as
stated above he was from Ohio, having
been born at Mount Vernon In 1916. Not
even President Lincoln and the officers
of his cabinet knew who was the COM
poser of the famous song according to
statements gathered from mutilated leaf
of "Gleanings from the world of music"
picked up by the writer two or three
years ago.
A large body of Confederates had been
captured down in Virginia and were be-
ing marched through the streets Of Wash
ington headed by band playing Dixie"
lone of his officers rushed up to the Pres
Iident who was standing in the portico of
the Capitol and said it was arch treason
for the band to be playing the rebel tune.
The President replied, "Oh, let them play
it! Did we not capture the song with
the prisoners?" showing clearly he was
under the impression that it was Of South
ern origin. Still the South claims it as
its own and like Banquo's ghost and the
cause that was not lost, "Dixie" will
not down.
A chronicler of the day (name not