How the darkies shouted when they heard the joyful sound! How the turkeys gobbled which our commissary found! How the sweet potatoes even started from the ground! While we were marching through Georgia.
Yes, and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears, When they saw the honored flag they hadn't seen for years; Hardly could they be restrained from breaking out in cheers, While we were marching through Georgia.
"Sherman's dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast!" So the saucy rebels said, and 'twas a handsome boast; Had they not forgotten, alas! to reckon with the host, While we were marching through Georgia?
So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and her train, Sixty miles in latitude--three hundred to the main; Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain, While we were marching through Georgia.
{ 130} [Illustration: PRAYER IN "STONEWALL" JACKSON'S CAMP.]
The tune "Dixie" was composed in 1859, by Mr. Dan D. Emmett, for Bryant's Minstrels, then performing in New York City. It hit the taste of the New York play-going public, and was adopted at once by various bands of wandering minstrels, who sang it in all parts of the Union. In 1860 it was first sung in New Orleans. In that city the tune was harmonized, set to new words, and, without the authority of the composer, was published. As from Boston "John Brown's Body" spread through the North, so from New Orleans "Dixie" spread through the South; and as Northern poets strove to find fitting words for the one, so Southern poets wrote fiery lines to fill the measures of the other. The only version possessing any literary merit is the one given in this collection. It was written by Gen. Albert Pike, a native of Massachusetts. In early life Mr. Pike moved to Little Rock, Ark., editing a paper and studying law in that city. He served in the Mexican war with distinction, and on the breaking out of the Rebellion enlisted on the Confederate side a force of Cherokee Indians, whom he led at the battle of Pea Ridge. It is said that President Lincoln requested a band in Washington to play "Dixie" in 1865, a short time after the surrender of Appomattox, remarking "that, as we had captured the rebel army, we had captured also the rebel tune."