Songs of the American civil war are, in my opinion, some of the most beautiful, stirring songs ever written.I would love to obtain more of these songs.One example is one of the saddest, yet most beautiful tribute ever written to a fallen soldier.From the digitrad, "The Vacant Chair":    THE VACANT CHAIR

    Introduction: During the Civil War, Lt. John William Grout was killed in battle at Balls Bluff, Virginia. His absence from his family's next thanksgiving, inspired ...

    THE VACANT CHAIR
    (Song is sung to the tune ...LIFE IS LIKE A MOUNTAIN RAILROAD.)

    1. We shall meet, but we shall miss him
    There will be one vacant chair
    We shall linger to caress him
    While we breathe our evening prayer;
    When a year ago we gathered joy was in his mild blue eye,
    But a golden chord is severed and our hopes in ruin lie.

    CHORUS: We shall meet, but we shall miss him
    There will be one vacant chair
    We shall linger to caress him
    While we breathe our evening prayer

    2. At our fireside, sad and lonely,
    Often will the bosom swell,
    At remembrance of the story
    How our noble Willie fell;
    How he strove to bear our banner
    Though the thickest of the fight,
    And uphold our country's honor
    In the strength of manhood's right.

    3. True they tell us wreaths of glory
    Ever more will deck his brow,
    But this soothes the anguish only
    Sweeping o'er our heartstrings now.
    Sleep today, oh early fallen,
    In thy green and narrow bed,
    Dirges from the pine and cypress,
    Mingle with the tears we shed.

    Performed by the Hemrick Family Singers on Heritage Records "Memories of Home"