Listening to History: Songs of the Civil War and What We Can Learn

Listening to History: Songs of the Civil War and What We Can Learn
Songs were a popular way to document the Civil War. Part of the lithograph cover of sheet music to “Hymn of the Freedman." Archive Photos/Getty Images
Jeff Minick
Updated:
Throughout American history, our wars have either popularized or produced songs that remain familiar to us today.
The American Revolution brought us many songs, but only “Yankee Doodle” has stood the test of time. Sung to an old tune and written originally as a song of English derision aimed at Americans during the French and Indian War, patriots of the Revolution took the song for their own, changed the words, and proudly played and sang it in their encampments. “Yankee Doodle” remains the state song of Connecticut.
Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
Related Topics