"Marching Through Georgia"[a] is anAmerican Civil War-eramarching song written and composed byHenry Clay Work. It is sung from the perspective of aUnion soldier who had participated inSherman's March to the Sea; he looks back on the momentous triumph after whichGeorgia became a "thoroughfare for freedom" and theConfederacy neared collapse.
Work made a name for himself in the Civil War for penning rousing tunes that reflected theUnion's struggle and progress in the war. The music publishing houseRoot & Cady employed him in 1861, a post he maintained throughout the war. Following the March to the Sea, the Union's triumph that left Confederate resources in tatters and civilians in anguish, Work was inspired to write a commemorative tune, "Marching Through Georgia".
The song was released in January 1865 to widespread success. One of the few Civil War compositions that withstood the war's end, it cemented a place in veteran reunions and marching parades. Sherman, to whom the song is dedicated, famously grew to despise it after being repeatedly subjected to its strains at the public gatherings he attended. "Marching Through Georgia" lent its tune to numerous partisan hymns, such as "Billy Boys" and "The Land". Beyond the United States, troops across the world have adopted it as a marching standard, from the Japanese in theRusso–Japanese War to the British inWorld War Two.
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Henry Clay Work (1832–1884) was aprinter by trade.[1] However, his true passion rested in music, a passion that blossomed during his youth and drew him into songwriting.[2] He published a song for the first time in 1853,[3] and eight years later, when theAmerican Civil War broke out,[4] his musical efforts took on a new life.[b] Work promptly approached theChicagoan music publishing firmRoot & Cady, presenting its publishing directorGeorge F. Root[7] with a manuscript of "Kingdom Coming". Root was impressed and assigned him a post.[8][c]
Throughout the Civil War,music bore great importance,[10] as the musicologistIrwin Silber comments: "soldiers and civilians of the Union states were inspired and propagandized by a host of patriotic songs."[11] Work, aNortherner, delivered,[12] penning 29 songs from 1861 to 1865.[13] His songs have been noted for communicating the feelings of Union civilians,[14] perhaps more so than "[those of] … any other songwriter," writesThe New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.[15] Some of Work's wartime compositions also impartanti-slavery sentiments, stemming from his upbringing on theUnderground Railroad.[16]
"Marching Through Georgia" would prove his most fruitful work yet.[17] Releasedc. January 9, 1865,[18] it commemorates theMarch to the Sea, a momentous Union triumph that had taken place a few weeks prior.[19] The song is dedicated to the campaign's mastermind,Major GeneralWilliam T. Sherman.[20] While other contemporary songs honored the march, such as H. M. Higgins' "General Sherman and His Boys in Blue" and S. T. Gordon's "Sherman's March to the Sea", Work's composition remains the best known.[21]
By September 1864, theUnion looked set to win the Civil War. Sherman, who had justcaptured Atlanta,[22] decided to pursue the coastal city ofSavannah[23] with an assembled unit of 62,000 troops. On November 15, they leftAtlanta to commence the March to the Sea.[24] Progress was smooth.[25] After a series of minor skirmishes and just two notable engagements atGriswoldville andFort McAllister, theUnion army moved into Savannah on December 21, which concluded the march.[26]
Sherman's campaign bore two immediate impacts on the South. Firstly, troops left destruction and paucity in their tracks as they scavenged the land for food and resources and laid waste to public buildings and infrastructure.[27] This fit Sherman's strategy—to persuade Southerners that the war was not worth supporting anymore.[28] Secondly, it inspired Southern slaves to flee to freedom. Over 14,000 joined the Union troops in Georgia with brisk enthusiasm once they passed near their native plantation, cementing the campaign as a milestone ofemancipation.[29]
A pioneering use ofpsychological warfare andtotal war,[30] the destruction wrought by Sherman's troops terrorized the South. Civilians whose territory and resources were ravaged grew so appalled at the conflict that their will to fight on dissipated, as Sherman had intended.[31] The march further crippled the Southern economy, incurring losses of approximately $100 million.[32][d] In the historian Herman Hattaway's words, it "[knocked] the Confederate war effort to pieces."[34]
Bring the good oldbugle boys! we'll sing another song,
Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along;
Sing it as we used to sing it fifty thousand strong,
While we weremarching through Georgia.
CHORUS
"Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring theJubilee!
Hurrah! Hurrah! theflag that makes you free!"
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,
While we were marching through Georgia.How the darkeys 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.
(CHORUS)
Yes, and there wereUnion men who wept with joyful tears,
When they saw the honor'd flag they had not seen for years;
Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers,
While we were marching through Georgia.
(CHORUS)
"Sherman's dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast!"
So the saucyrebels said, and 'twas a handsome boast,
Had they not forgot, alas! to reckon with the host,
While we were marching through Georgia.
(CHORUS)
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.
(CHORUS)
"Marching Through Georgia" is sung from a Union soldier's point of view. He had taken part in the March to the Sea and now recounts the campaign's triumphs and their repercussions on theConfederacy.[36] The song comprises fivestanzas and arefrain.[37]
The first stanza commences with a rallying cry for Sherman's troops.[37] As notes the historianDavid J. Eicher, it underrepresents their number as 50,000; in fact, over 60,000 took part in the march.[38] The chorus symbolizes the end ofAfrican-American servitude and the advent of a new life of freedom; it renders the war an effort inemancipation above all else.[39] A retelling ofSouthern Unionists' celebration of the Northern troops defines the third stanza:[39] they "[weep] with joyful tears / When they [see] the honor'dflag they had not seen for years."[40] A comedic tone is imbued in the fourth stanza, where the Confederates who had scoffed at Sherman's campaign see themseves proven wrong.[37] The final stanza celebrates the success of the march,[37] after which "treason fled before [the Union troops] for resistance was in vain".[41]
The historian Christian McWhirter evaluates the song's lyrical and thematic framework:
On the surface, it celebrated Sherman's campaign from Atlanta to Savannah; but it also told listeners how to interpret Union victory. Speaking as a white soldier, Work turned the targeting of Confederate civilian property into a celebration of unionism and emancipation. Instead of destroyers, Union soldiers became deliverers for slaves and southern unionists. Georgia was not left in ruins but was converted into 'a thoroughfare for freedom.'[42]
"Marching Through Georgia" is incommon time in the key ofB♭ major. It commences with a four-bar introduction which follows achord progression of B♭–E♭–B♭–F7–B♭. Each verse and chorus is eight bars long. A soloist is intended to sing the individual stanzas, and a jointSATB choir accompanies the solo voice for the chorus. Work does not write any expression markings ordynamics throughout the song, bar afortissimo marking at the start of the chorus. The original sheet music provides a piano accompaniment to be performed during the song.[43] According to the writer Florine Thayer McCray, the song's "suggestive verse" and "swinging meter" capture the enthusiasm felt by Union troops during the campaign.[44]
Like other pieces in Work's wartime catalog,[14] "Marching Through Georgia" captures contemporary attitudes among Northern civilians—in this case, jubilation over Sherman's fruitful campaign. It fulfilled their demand for a celebratory patriotic hymn.[39] Accordingly, the song imparts patriotic spirit,[45] such that it "rubbed Yankee salt into one of the sorest wounds of the Civil War," in the musicologistSigmund Spaeth's words.[46] To soldiers, Work's piece was the "only [one] which [...] thoroughly expressed their triumphant enthusiasm," according to McWhirter.[47]
"Marching Through Georgia" was one of the few wartime compositions to outlast the conflict.[48] Civilians had grown tired of war, mirrored by the short-lasting fame of "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!", an anthem known to the entire Union that nonetheless left the spotlight after 1865.[49] In his autobiography published 26 years after Work drafted the song,George F. Root explains its unique postbellum popularity:
[It] is more played and sung at the present time than any other song of the war. This is not only on account of the intrinsic merit of its words and music, but because it isretrospective. Other war songs, "The Battle Cry of Freedom" for example, were for exciting the patriotic feeling ongoing in to the war or the battle; "Marching Through Georgia" is a glorious remembrance on coming triumphantly out, and so has been more appropriate to soldiers' and other gatherings ever since.[50]
"Marching Through Georgia" cemented itself as a Civil War icon.[51] It came to the define theMarch to the Sea[38] and became Sherman's unofficial theme song.[52] Selling 500,000 copies of sheet music within 12 years,[53] it was one of the most successful wartime tunes and Work's most profitable hit up to that point.[54]David Ewen regards it as "the greatest of his war songs,"[55] and Carl S. Lowden deems it his very best work, in part owing to its "soul-stirring" production and longevity.[56]
Edwin Tribble opines that Work's postbellum fame, the little he had, rested on the success of "Marching Through Georgia",[57] citing a letter he wrote to his long-time correspondent Susie Mitchell: "It is really surprising that I have excited so much curiosity and interest here [at an annual encampment of theGrand Army of the Republic (GAR)], not only among romantic young women but among all classes. My connection with 'Marching Through Georgia' seems to be the cause."[58][e] In fact, starting from the late nineteenth century, the song predominatedNorthern veteran gatherings.[60]
Sherman himself came to loathe "Marching Through Georgia" because of its ubiquity in the North, being performed unremittingly at public functions he attended. When he reviewed the national encampment of the GAR in 1890, the hundreds of bands present played the tune every time they passed him for an unbroken seven hours.[61] Eyewitnesses claim that "his patience collapsed and he declared that he would never again attend another encampment until every band in the United States had signed an agreementnot to play 'Marching Though Georgia' in his presence."[62] Sherman maintained his promise for all his life. However, the song was played at his funeral.[63]
"Marching Through Georgia" does not share the same popularity in the nation's other half.Irwin Silber deems it the most despisedUnionist song in theSouth owing to its evoking a devastated Georgia at the hands of Sherman's army.[64] Accordingly,Sigmund Spaeth explicitly advises readers not to sing or play Work's composition to a Southerner.[65] Two incidents, both at aDemocratic National Convention, exemplify Georgia's contempt for the song. In the1908 convention, Georgia was one of the few states not to send its delegates[66] to the eventual victorWilliam Jennings Bryan;[67] the band insultingly played "Marching Through Georgia" to express the convention's disapproval.[66] A similar incident sparked in1924. When tasked to play a fitting song for the Georgia delegation, the convention's band broke into Work's piece.[68] The historianJohn Tasker Howard remarks: "[...] when the misguided leader, stronger on geography than history, swung intoMarching Through Georgia, he was greeted by a silence that turned into hisses and boos noisier than the applause he had heard before."[69]
While "undeniably" American,[70] "Marching Through Georgia" has become a "universal anthem."[71] Armed forces across the world have performed it:[53] Japanese troops sang "Marching Through Georgia" as theyentered Port Arthur at theRusso–Japanese War's onset, and British troops stationed in India periodically chanted it.[72] The song's melody has also been adapted into numerous regional military and nationalist anthems. ThePrinceton football fight song "Nassau! Nassau!" borrowed the melody of Work's piece,[73] as did the controversial pro-Ulster hymn "Billy Boys",[74] whose chorus goes:
Both major candidates in the1896 U.S. presidential election,William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan, featured songs sung to the tune of "Marching Through Georgia" in their campaign.[76] The melody of "Paint 'Er Red", a pro-labor tune of theIndustrial Workers of the World, is based on the song.[77] In the United Kingdom, the song lent the tune of future prime ministerDavid Lloyd George's campaign song "George andGladstone"[78] as well as theliberal anthem, "The Land". The latter is aGeorgist protest song calling for the fair distribution of land:[79]
The land! the land! 'twas God who gave the land!
The land! the land! the ground on which we stand!
Why should we be beggars, with the ballot in our hand?
"God gave the land to the People!"[80]
Several films have employed Work's piece. Somecarpetbaggers in theepicGone with the Wind (1939) chants its chorus while trying to stealTara fromScarlett O'Hara.[52] ThewesternShane (1953) features the song, again, "making sport of aRebel character."[81] "Marching Through Georgia" was additionally incorporated inKen Burns' documentaryThe Civil War (1990) andCharles Ives' orchestral suiteThree Places in New England.[37]
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