I Wish I Was Single Again Minstrel
The Nascence of 'Dixie'
Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
In a New York apartment on a rainy twenty-four hour period in March 1859, Daniel Decatur Emmett sabbatum downwardly at his desk to write a song for his employer, Bryant'southward Minstrels, and its upcoming stage show. Then 44 years old, Emmett had been composing minstrel songs — to be performed primarily by white actors in blackface — since he was fifteen. Looking out his window at the dreary solar day outside, Emmett took his inspiration from the weather. A unmarried line, "I wish I was in Dixie," echoed in his heed. Earlier long, information technology would echo beyond the land.
Few of us remember "Dixie" every bit antebellum America's last bully minstrel song. We meet it every bit most did ii years later its cosmos — as the anthem of the Confederacy. And still as phenomenally popular as it was the North before the war, "Dixie" was slow to catch on in the Southward. Lacking the Yankees' enthusiasm for minstrelsy, most Southerners were unaware of the tune until late 1860. By sheer chance of fate, its arrival coincided with the outbreak of secession. Every bit newly minted Confederates rejected the anthems of their old nation, they desperately sought replacements.
Indeed, once it reached the South, "Dixie," despite being a song written by a Northerner, rose to prominence with exceptional speed. One songwriter recalled how it "spontaneously" became the Confederacy's anthem, and a British correspondent noted the "wild-burn rapidity" of its "spread over the whole South." The tune received an unofficial endorsement when it was played at Confederate President Jefferson Davis'due south inauguration in February 1861. This was casual — information technology was recommended to a Montgomery, Ala., bandleader who knew nothing of the tune — simply "Dixie'south" inclusion gave the appearance of presidential approval. The Confederate government never formally endorsed "Dixie," though Davis did ain a music box that played the song and is rumored to have favored it as the Due south'due south anthem.
Repeated performances of "Dixie" by Confederates confirmed its new status. Even earlier Virginia seceded, the Richmond Dispatch labeled "Dixie" the "National Anthem of Secession," and the New York Times concurred a few months later on, observing that the tune "has been the inspiring melody which the Southern people, by general consent, have adopted every bit their 'national air.'" Publishers recorded that sales were "altogether unprecedented" and, when Robert E. Lee sought a copy for his wife in the summer of 1861, he establish none were left in all of Virginia.
David K. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University Original sail music for "Dixie" "Dixie" became and so continued so apace with the South that many Americans attributed its very proper noun to the region. In fact, the precise origin of the discussion "Dixie" remains unknown, though three competing theories persist. It either references a benevolent slaveholder named Dix (thus slaves wanting to return to "Dix's Country"), Louisiana (where $10 notes were sometimes chosen Dix notes), or — and most probable — the land below the Bricklayer and Dixon'southward line (the slaveholding South). Regardless, Emmett's tune made it role of the national vocabulary. During the Civil War, soldiers, civilians and slaves ofttimes referred to the S as Dixie and considered Emmett'southward ditty the region's anthem.
This popularity is remarkable, every bit little about "Dixie" recommends it as a national anthem. The tune lacks gravitas, and only the first poesy and chorus express anything approximating Southern nationalism:
I Wish I was in de land ob cotton wool,
Old times dar am not forgotten
Look away! wait away! look away! Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land whar I was born in,
Early on one frosty mornin',
Look away! look away! await abroad! Dixie Land.Den I wish I was in Dixie,
Hooray! hooray!
In Dixie Country I'll take my stand up,
To lib and die in Dixie,
Abroad, away, away down south in Dixie,
Away, away, away downwards south in Dixie.
The rest is unmistakably the piece of work of a songwriter utilizing various minstrel clichés. "Dixie'due south" speaker is a slave who worries that his plantation mistress is beingness seduced into marrying "Will de Weaber," the "gay deceiber" who outlives her and inherits her plantation. Although the speaker expresses his desire to live in the South until he dies, the song provides fiddling else to endear it to Confederate patriots.
Nevertheless, a sort of inertia pushed the song's reputation higher and higher in the Southern mind. Confederates performed "Dixie" enthusiastically and remained devoted to information technology fifty-fifty when an alternative anthem — Harry Macarthy's "Bonnie Blue Flag" — became available. The more Americans on both sides believed that "Dixie" was the Amalgamated anthem, the more it became and then. This was especially true for soldiers, who were some of the start to comprehend "Dixie" and increasingly associated it, amazingly, with sacrifices made for the state of war. For one Confederate surgeon, the vocal "brings to mind the memory of friends who loved it — friends, the light of whose lives were extinguished in claret, whose spirit were quenched in violence."
To be sure, many Southerners were well aware of "Dixie'southward" obvious deficiencies. Most simply ignored these bug, though some tried to reconcile them with the Confederacy'southward history and objectives. The Richmond Dispatch stretched its brownie attempting to prove that the song was a parable for secession. It argued that "Will de Weaber" was not a minstrel stereotype simply, in fact, Abraham Lincoln, who seduced the nation into voting for him, leading to the Due south'due south rebirth equally the Confederacy. To conclude the piece, the writer triumphantly asked, "Can any 1 now fail to come across that, in the verses of this deservedly pop song, an epitome is given of the events which, since last November, have shaken this state?" Emmett surely disagreed, every bit he reportedly declared that, had he known the Confederates would prefer "Dixie" as their anthem, "I will be damned if I'd have written information technology."
Other Southerners were more disturbed by "Dixie'southward" apparently undeserved status and sought more extreme solutions. Many rejected it outright. "It smells too strongly of the [negro] to assume a dignified rank of the National Song" declared i malcontent, while another argued information technology was "absurd to imagine that Dixie, a dancing; capering, rowdyish, bacchanalian negro air" could be sung by "a nation of gratuitous men … with any respect for themselves." Others recognized that most of the vocal's appeal came from its catchy melody and simply drafted new lyrics. Numerous such revisions appeared throughout the state of war but none achieved much success. But i, by the Confederate Indian agent and general Albert Pike, enjoyed fifty-fifty a express popularity and continues to appear occasionally in histories, songbooks and public performances.
Even Lincoln recognized the song's ability and, at the end of the war, attempted to reclaim "Dixie" every bit an American, rather than Amalgamated, song. "Our adversaries over the way attempted to advisable it, but I insisted," he told a crowd of admirers in Washington, "that we adequately captured it."
Despite these efforts and the connected protestations of some Southerners, "Dixie" remained wedded to its Amalgamated identity. Although a uncomplicated minstrel ditty, 150 years of history accept loaded the song with indelible political, racial, armed forces and social connotations. For better or for worse, "Dixie" was the South'southward canticle, and will most likely remain then for generations.
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Sources: Daniel Decatur Emmett, "Away Downward Southward in Dixie," New York Clipper, April 6, 1872; Richard B. Harwell, "The Amalgamated Search for a National Song," Lincoln Herald, Feb 1950; "Three Months in the Confederate Army," Alphabetize, June 26, 1862; "Dixie Composer, On Visit to Birmingham, Tells How Famous War Song Was Written," Birmingham News, Nov. 2, 1924; "Quite a Novelty," Petersburg Daily Limited, May 4, 1865; "The Enigma Solved," Richmond Dispatch, March 25 and May 11, 1861; "Songs for the Due south," New York Times, June xvi, 1861; Robert E. Lee Jr., "Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee"; Hans Nathan, "Dan Emmett and the Rising of Early Negro Minstrelsy"; Daniel Decatur Emmett, "I Wish I Was in Dixie's Country"; Junius Newport Bragg and Helen Bragg Gaughan, "Messages of a Confederate Surgeon, 1861-65″; T. C. De Leon, "Belles, Beaux, and Brains of the 60's"; Albert Motorway and J. C. Vierick, "The State of war Song of Dixie"; Abraham Lincoln, "Response to Serenade," Apr 10, 1865.
Christian McWhirter is an banana editor for The Papers of Abraham Lincoln and the writer of "Battle Hymns: The Power and Popularity of Music in the Ceremonious State of war."
Source: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/31/the-birth-of-dixie/
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