It seems clear that the famous Merle Travis instrumental is based on the 1904 march Blue Bell. (I re-linked it here since Masato's link above is no longer valid.) The head (main theme) of the Travis instrumental is clearly taken from the chorus of the 1904 Madden/Morse march. Travis' bridge to the tune may be based on the opening part of the march but I haven't spent the time to investigate this.

Thom Bresh clearly thought it was a Civil War tune and I'm guessing he would cite Merle as his source for that information. It seems odd that Merle would have taken the trouble to work this tune up as an original instrumental. I'm guessing he originally picked it up from Mose Rager who may have picked it up from Kennedy Jones and he simply trusted the attribution that came with it.

I've also always thought it odd that the word bell is nearly always used in the title rather than belle. But now I see the original title used bell and not belle. I've seen the Travis instrumental variously called Farewell My Blue Bell, Goodbye My Blue Bell, and just Blue Bell. And of course blue bell is sometimes used as a single word, bluebell.

I still have two different recordings our own Justa Picker made of the Travis instrumental, one the way Merle played it and one the way Doc Watson played it. I sure miss Justa.

      - Mark