Battle of the Bands

5th Virginia Infantry band
(Military Images, 1983)

   Music has always played an important part of military life, from the drums that woke them up in the morning or the brass bands that serenaded the soldiers off to sleep. As Robert E. Lee once famously said: “I don’t believe we can have an army without music.”[1] Musicians were not often under fire, but they did wage, on occasion, their own battles of the bands against the tooters on the other side.

   One such event took place on the eve of the battle of Murfreesboro (Stone’s River). It was December 30, 1862. Skirmishers had plied their deadly trade that day, as the armies moved into position. That night, the bands began to play. A Southern band struck up “Bonny Blue Flag,” which was answered by “Hail, Columbia,” and then “Yankee Doodle.” After the dueling went on for some time, one band began to play the haunting strains of “Home, Sweet Home,” with bands on each side joining in. “We could hear the sweet refrain as it died away on the cool frost air,” recalled a member of the 19^th Tennessee Infantry. This scene would be played out in different camps throughout the war.[2]  

   Just a couple of weeks earlier, a similar event occurred on the banks of the Rappahannock River, near Fredericksburg in Virginia. A Confederate band played “Dixie,” followed by a Union band playing “John Brown’s Body.” Then came “The Bonnie Blue Flag” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” After a few moments of silence, a lone Federal bugler played the notes of “Home, Sweet Home.”[3]

   On May 2, 1863, as the battle of Chancellorsville got underway, Confederate artillery under Jubal Early dueled with Federals. One Federal officer noted that that during the bombardment “from the rebel lines came the clear notes of a band playing the air of ‘Dixie,’ a favorite tune with the Confederates. Three or four times they played it through, and then stopped. In a moment, a band in our own army commenced the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’”[4]

   During the siege of Vicksburg, the commander of Waul’s Legion (Texas) instructed E. W. Krause to play for the men, trying to raise their spirits. The Legion band began to play “in a very patriotic air ‘Dixie,’” to which a Federal band responded with “a very rude and unharmonious, double Forte accompaniment.” Federal artillery lent their music, “directed at the impudent bank in which we were sheltering.” Krause wrote that the practice was continued throughout the siege.[5]

   During much of 1864, the armies were close to each other. At daylight on July 4, Federal bands outside Petersburg shattered the early morning stillness with “a perfect hurricane of national airs.” The Confederate bands soon replied, with each side cheering their tunes, while groaning at those of the enemy. “After sundown our brass bands and those of the enemy indulged in a musical duel,” wrote a member of the Donaldsonville Artillery. 6 In the outskirts of Atlanta, on August 14, Washington Ives, of the 4^th Florida Infantry, recalled the “The Bands on both sides play every evening and as a band on either side plays, the partizans begin to yell. Three nights ago after the Fed. & Reb. had played several times for each other the troops on both sides began yelling. . . during which a great many men picked up their guns and accoutrements and jumped into the fortifications thinking the enemy was going to charge us.” [7]

   There are undoubtedly scores of other accounts and admittedly, these few jottings just scratch the surface. These tunes inspired men, as demonstrated by the account of the soldier in the 4^th Florida. The bands could be even more important in combat. Making music and making war might seem incompatible. In the end, the music played in camp by bands South and North had a profound impact not just in the moment, but for generations.

  

[1] Clark, NC Troops, 2:399.

[2] Daniel, Battle of Stones River, 68.

[3] Barton and Logue, The Civil War Soldier: A Historical Reader, 126.

[4] Mackowski and White, Chancellorsville’s Forgotten Front,

[5] Woodworth and Grear, The Vicksburg Assaults, May 19-22, 1863, 86

[6] Greene, A Campaign of Giants – The Battle for Petersburg, 1:345

[7] Sheppard, By the Noble Baring of Her Sons, 194.