The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #146241   Message #3386688
Posted By: DannyC
05-Aug-12 - 10:40 PM
Thread Name: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ?
Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ?
My wife and I go out and sing nearly every Thursday night in downtown Lexington.

In doing so we are playing music within 200 yards of a place where human beings were sold like livestock (in chains rather than in pens), within a few hundred yards of the family home of Mary Todd Lincoln who witnessed these barbaric human auctions, and within three (3) City blocks of Transylvania University where Jefferson Davis attended school.

I've stood over the mountainside graves of my wife's Orphan Brigade ancestors, (Capt. This and Lt. That) and in the hollar where Red String bushwhackers sought, caught and killed her "rebel scout" relation on a snowy night in his home (Jan. 1864, I think). In fact, The Red String were opportunists seeking to grab the land (and the mineral rights attached thereto)

The Red Strings' killing spree that night initiated Kentucky feuding that lasted for generations and nearly to our present day. Some people still call the County "Bloody Breathitt".

Nah... Prolly best to just keep singing songs about lonely train whistles, long black veils, n' Blue Moons n' such...