Songs Of The Civil War Serenade Shaw Mansion Guests

At the same time the United States was sliding toward disunion, it was also entering a period where songwriters could finally make a living from their craft. On Wednesday evening, Rick Spencer performed some of the “greatest hits of the Civil War” to discuss this time in musical history.

The brief concert, played in the yard of the Shaw Mansion, was part of the ’s series of events related to the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. Edward Baker, executive director of the society, said the idea was to present some aspects of the 150th anniversary of the start of the conflict in a unique way. At the organization’s annual meeting in September, textile expert Lynne Bassett will speak about the work of women on the home front such as the assembly of bandages for soldiers.

“We have been wanting to schedule a few programs for the sesquicentennial,” said Baker. “It’s been getting quite a bit of notice at the state and the federal level.”

Spencer said that in the 1850s, most large cities in the United States had large music publishing houses. Songwriters found that they could earn a living wage, as these businesses sold the sheet music for their compositions across the country. In the days before recorded music, people either went to performances of the music or performed it themselves. The time period meant the songwriters who were becoming more popular were around when the Confederacy attacked the Union-held Fort Sumter in April of 1861, touching off the Civil War.

“All of the songs that I do in this presentation were hugely popular during the war and continued to be so afterward,” said Spencer.

The most impressive part of the music, Spencer said, was its staying power. He said he begins each banjo and guitar concert on the topic with a brief game of “Name That Tune.” Audiences are always able to recognize the notes of songs like “Dixie,” “Camptown Races,” and other familiar tunes even though the youngest of the songs is 150 years old.

“How many of Lady Gaga’s songs are going to be recognizable in 150 years?” he joked. “I don’t know.”

The four musicians Spencer profiled were Daniel Decatur Emmett (“Dixie”), Stephen Collins Foster (“Camptown Races” and “O Susanna”), Henry Clay Work (“Marching Through Georgia”) and George Frederick Root (“The Battle Cry of Freedom.”). Spencer said Emmett, of Ohio, was not to pleased when his famous song was played at the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederacy. It immediately became the anthem of the South, and was not heard again in the North except in parody. The song did have a fan in President Abraham Lincoln, however. After the Confederacy surrendered in 1865, Lincoln said at an assembly, “I have always thought ‘Dixie’ was one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it.”

Spencer said he was keen on promoting Henry Clay Work, a Middletown native, describing him as his favorite songwriter.

“This is a fellow who needs a revival, and I’m in a one-man mission to do so,” he said.

Spencer worked for Mystic Seaport for 20 years and also spent time as the site administrator for the . He is currently the director of the Dr. Ashbel Woodward House in Franklin.