"Chamber Lye" was apparently sung (when sung and not simply recited) to the tune of "Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum!" which was appropriated for the Confederate smash hit "Maryland, My Maryland!"

The poem is so inoffensive by modern standards that it made it into "The Oxford Book of American Light Verse" as far back as 1979.

Jonathan Haralson [sic](1830-1912) was a quite distinguished Alabaman. He held a master's degree from the University of Alabama and a law degree from the U. Louisiana (later Tulane). During the war he served as agent at Selma of the Nitre and Mining Bureau of the Confederate States. His "chamber lye" request was issued in 1863. In 1892 Haralson was elected Associate Justice of the Alabama Supereme Court, a position he held until 1910.

"Wetmore," the supposed author of "Chamber Lye," is undoubtedly the Selma Provost Marshal Thomas B. Wetmore (1821-94), a local attorney. It seems hardly likely, though, that a public official like Wetmore would have published such a ribald poem under his own name, even if ihe'd written it, especially since the poem satirizes a fellow government official who was doing his job to support the war effort. A more likely scenario is that an anonymous satirist seized on the name "Wetmore" as both recognizable and especially appropriate, thus exploiting both men for a good laugh.