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“I have often been utterly astonished...”Frederick Douglass (1845)

I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most whenthey are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience.

SOURCE: Frederick Douglass: NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. (1845)

http://ia600302.us.archive.org/30/items/narrativeoftheli00023gut/23-h/23-h.htm

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The Glory-Beaming Banjo!

Mark Twain

San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle, 23 June 1865

The piano may do for love-sick girls who lace themsleves to skeletons, and lunch on chalk, pickles and slate pencils. But give me the banjo. …

When you want genuine music -- music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose, -- when you want all this, justsmash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!

SOURCE : Mark Twain in the San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle … http://www.twainquotes.com/Chronicle/18650623.html

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“They took all”

Harriet Ann Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.Written by Herself (1861)

O, you happy free women, contrast your New Year's day with that of the poor bond-woman! With you it is a pleasant season, and the light of the day is blessed. Friendly wishes meet you every where, and gifts are showered upon you. ...

But to the slave mother New Year's day comes ladenwith peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning; and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns. She may be an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from childhood; but she has a mother's instincts, and is capable of feeling a mother's agonies.

On one of these sale days, I saw a mother lead sevenchildren to the auction-block. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all. … Instances of this kind are of daily, yea, of hourly occurrence.

SOURCE: Harriet Ann Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written by Herself (1861) ( http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/jacobs/jacobs.html )

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Harriet Ann Jacobs in 1894.

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We Wait Beneath the Furnace Blast

John Greenleaf Whittier (1861)WE wait beneath the furnace-blast

The pangs of transformation;

Not painlessly doth God recast

And mould anew the nation.

Hot burns the fire

Where wrongs expire;

Nor spares the hand

That from the land

Uproots the ancient evil.

The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared

Its bloody rain is dropping;

The poison plant the fathers spared

All else is overtopping.

East, West, South, North,

It curses the earth;

All justice dies,

And fraud and lies

Live only in its shadow.

What gives the wheat-field blades of steel?What points the rebel cannon?What sets the roaring rabble's heelOn the old star-spangled pennon?What breaks the oathOf the men o' the South?What wets the knifeFor the Union's life? —Hark to the answer: Slavery!

Then waste no blows on lesser foesIn strife unworthy freemen.God lifts to-day the veil, and showsThe features of the demon!O North and South,Its victims both,Can ye not cry,"Let slavery die!"And union find in freedom?

SOURCE: Antislavery Poems in Wartime ~ http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/amverse/BAE0044.0001.001/1:4.64.4?rgn=div3;view=fulltext

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“One of the best tunes I have ever heard...”

Abraham Lincoln (April 10, 1865)

I see you have a band of music with you. [Voices, `We have two or three.'] I propose closing up this interview bythe band performing a particular tune which I will name. Before this is done, however, I wish to mention one or two little circumstances connected with it. I have always thought `Dixie' 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. [Applause.] I presented the question to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. [Laughter and applause.] I now request the band to favor me with its performance.

SOURCE: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln ~ http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln8/1:840?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

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Holiday Soldiers

Stow Town Meeting Minutes (October 22, 1861)

The sudden call "to arms" from a state of profound peace found the State of Massachusetts unable to properly clothe andequip the men who willing to march at a moment's notice to the defense of the National Capitol without aid from the townswhere the volunteers belonged.

A number of our citizens belonged to the State Militia and expected to be called to march at any moment; … Twenty eight persons offered themselves as volunteers and uniforms were provided for them; the committee bought the cloth and coats were made in Boston and the ladies met at the Town Halland made 72 woolen shirts and 28 pairs of pants. ...

When the uniforms were distributed it was stated that if for any reason any person receiving one should not go to the war he should return his uniform for the benefit of the town.

The following men did not go and when called upon by the committee, refused to give them up: Eli Willis, F. D. Hosmer, Walter Yont, Charles A. Sears, Ebenezer L. Blood, Eliphalet Sears, and James O'Brien and we have been continually annoyed by some of these holiday soldiers wearing these uniforms about our streets since their return from the Fort.SOURCE: Stow MA Historical Society

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