Thoroughly unreliable, without lots more evidence. I've seen baseless claims - from published sources - that George F. Root's "Just Before the Battle, Mother" (1863) was "sung during the Crimean War," that "Frankie and Johnny" was sung at the siege of Vicksburg, and (of course) that Geoghegan's "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye" (1867) was sung in Ireland before 1805.
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