Battle Hymns - (Civil War America) by Christian McWhirter (Paperback)

About the Book

Battle Hymns: The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War

Book Synopsis

Music was everywhere during the Civil War. Tunes could be heard ringing out from parlor pianos, thundering at political rallies, and setting the rhythms of military and domestic life. With literacy still limited, music was an important vehicle for communicating ideas about the war, and it had a lasting impact in the decades that followed. Drawing on an array of published and archival sources, Christian McWhirter analyzes the myriad ways music influenced popular culture in the years surrounding the war and discusses its deep resonance for both whites and blacks, South and North.

Though published songs of the time have long been catalogued and appreciated, McWhirter is the first to explore what Americans actually said and did with these pieces. By gauging the popularity of the most prominent songs and examining how Americans used them, McWhirter returns music to its central place in American life during the nation's greatest crisis. The result is a portrait of a war fought to music.

Review Quotes

"A detailed and thorough account invaluable to students of the Civil War and American cultural history."--North Carolina Historical Review

"A fascinating examination of how popular songs defined and unified ideologies during the Civil War."--Southern Register

"A wealth of practical information on who composed what, when, and under what circumstances. [McWhirter's] discovery of minute details concerning the origins of popular Civil War songs constitutes a real contribution to this area of specialization."--Civil War Book Review

"An extensive, descriptive account of music during the American Civil War."--Journal of American History

"An extremely valuable addition to the canon of Civil War history."--Southern Historian

"Contains fascinating, humorous, and little-known stories from the period."--Kansas History

"Exceptionally well researched and engagingly written . . . A welcome addition to a growing scholarship on popular culture in the Civil War era. . . . [It] will profit scholars who work on popular culture in nineteenth-century America, Union and Confederate nationalism, the history of music, and Civil War memory."--H-CivWar

"McWhirter excels at tracing the history and popularity of a variety of songs from the 1860s."--Journal of Southern History

"Much more than a treat for lovers of good history writing and a fresh look at well-trodden fields, it is also a painful reminder of just how divided a nation we were at birth, and how those divisions live with us still."--Huffington Post

"Through meticulous research, McWhiter has paid tribute to a forgotten aspect of the Civil War: its music."--Journal of African American History