If you can find a version of Pete singing the song you have in mind, Joe, we can go compare as we wallow in Gottschalk works on YouTube. :-)

These days Gottschalk's most prominent piece is A Night In the Tropics. The part in particular one hears played as an excerpt is the Fiesta criolla from near the end of the larger piece. This shows you that like a lot of composers of his day, he incorporated local melodies into his larger works. I am pleased to see a variety of his pieces uploaded.

The 2012 thread link above is to an expired My Space page.