Origins: Going Across the Mountain

Subject: Origins: Going Across the Mountain
From: cnd
Date: 15 Feb 20 - 12:04 PM

Does anyone know anything of the origins of this song? I have read two conflicting reports on where it comes from.

A commenter on this YouTube video of Frank Proffitt's rendition of the song writes the following:

"On a film clip made at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, following the abbreviated playing of this song, Pete Seeger asks Frank to tell the audience about the song. Frank said, "My grandfather, it was his feelings he expressed in that song. Well, my grandfather who...he joined the Union forces, his brother joined the Southern forces, and so he made this little song expressing his feelings about going away to the war, at that time." Frank Proffitt believed deeply in the musical heritage of his family, and although he could play Jimmie Rodgers and Carter Family songs, and listened to radio and recordings, almost the entirety of his later (Folkways & Folk Legacy) recordings were devoted to traditional and family oriented music, the music he grew up with from his earliest days. In his own writings there is a great sentimentality for the people of "the ridge". His friendship with Anne and Frank Warner helped him to realize the cultural value of the music he loved. We are very lucky that he was elevated to a somewhat national status before his untimely death. Sandy Paton documented him with three albums in the few years before and after he died, some of the finest music of its kind."

If anyone has access to that 1963 film footage, I would greatly appreciate a confirmation on that quote, or even better the ability to see it.

On the other hand, another YouTube video, by Clifton Hicks, asserts that the song likely has origins from the Revolutionary War.

I know that the Civil War was not an unfamiliar face to the folk process of songs, and that many songs got changed and adapted to be applied to it, but I haven't found anywhere else that claims it's from the Revolutionary War, or much else on the origins of the song.

The Mudcat DT page, says "Frank's grandfather, a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln, chose to "go across the mountain to join the boys in blue" and fight against the Confederacy."

Subject: RE: Origins: Going Across the Mountain
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Feb 20 - 12:14 PM

From Sandy Paton's notes to the song on the Folk-Legacy LP "Frank Proffitt, Reese, N.C." (1962):

"Frank's grandfather, a great admirer of Abe Lincoln, chose to go the hard way--he went 'across the mountain to join the boys in
blue'. (Once, separated from his outfit, he wandered into a camp of Confederate soldiers and found himself face to face with his
own brother, who had made the other decision. By feigning insanity, he managed to escape and rejoin his own unit, but one can
well imagine the anxious moments experienced by the two brothers
in the interim.} Frank learned this song, which describes the
farewell of a 'Southern Yankee' to his sweetheart, from his father.
Frank is not sure, but it seems likely that his father had it, in
turn from his father, I have not found it reported elsewhere."

Hopes this helps: it's from a year earlier than the Folk Festival.

Subject: RE: Origins: Going Across the Mountain
From: gillymor
Date: 15 Feb 20 - 03:17 PM

No help here but here's Pete and Frank Warner discussing Proffitt and a brief clip of FP playing Going Across the Mountain at the '64 Newport FF from Pete's Rainbow Quest TV show.
I think the focus shifts to FP at about 23:20 in but the whole show is interesting, including Pete remembering a humorous letter that FP sent to a dulcimer maker looking for advice at 38:30.

Click

It's just speculation but the song could have come from earlier times and been rearranged to match the situation, that's sure been done before.You might be able to contact Clifton Hicks for more info.
At any rate it's a wonderful old song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Going Across the Mountain
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 16 Feb 20 - 11:03 AM

The following doesn't add much, but there are a few differences that may be of interest to someone.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=bzaBnQ6shPMC&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=earliest+rendition+of+frank+proffitt%27s+sone,+going+across+th

Subject: RE: Origins: Going Across the Mountain
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Feb 20 - 05:22 PM

Roud lists Frank Proffitt as the only source for this song, recorded by Frank Warner and by Sandy Paton. There's no listing for this song in the Traditional Ballad Index.

---

I posted Sandy Paton's transcription, and it ended up in the Digital Tradition:

GOING ACROSS THE MOUNTAIN

Going across the mountain,
Oh, fare you well;
Going across the mountain,
You can hear my banjo tell.

Got my rations on my back,
My powder it is dry;
I'm a-goin' across the mountain,
Chrissie, don't you cry.

Going across the mountain,
To join the boys in blue;
When this war is over,
I'll come back to you.

Going across the mountain,
If I have to crawl,
To give old Jeff's men
A little of my rifle ball.

Way before it's good daylight,
If nothing happens to me,
I'll be way down yander
In old Tennessee.

I expect you'll miss me when I'm gone,
But I'm going through;
When this war is over,
I'll come back to you.

Going across the mountain,
Oh, fare you well;
Going across the mountain,
Oh, fare you well.

(As sung by Frank Proffitt on the album "Frank Proffitt of Reese, North Carolina,"
Folk-Legacy CD). Frank's grandfather, a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln, chose
to "go across the mountain to join the boys in blue" and fight against the
Confederacy.

@American @Civil @war @Confederate
filename[ CROSMOUN
JRO
Oct01

Subject: RE: Origins: Going Across the Mountain
From: cnd
Date: 16 Feb 20 - 09:15 PM

Thank you all very much for your help! Fascinating stuff

Subject: ADD Version: Going Across the Mountain
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Feb 20 - 10:09 PM

The Frank Warner transcription is so similar, but I figured I ought to post it for the sake of completeness.

GOIN' 'CROSS THE MOUNTAINS

Goin' 'cross the mountains,
Oh, fare thee well.
Goin' 'cross the mountains,
Hear my banjo tell.

Got my rations on my back,
My powder it is dry.
Goin’‘cross the mountain,
Chrissy, don’t you cry.

Goin’‘cross the mountain
To jine the boys in blue.
When it’s all well and done,
Then I’ll come back to you.

Goin’‘cross the mountain,
If I have to crawl,
To give Jeff’s men a little taste
Of my rifle ball.

Way ‘fore it’s good daylight,
[If] nothing happens to me,
I’ll be way down
In old Tennessee.

I ‘spect you’ll miss me when I’m gone,
But I’m going through.
When this fighting’s over,
Then I’ll come back to you.


Notes (from Frank Warner):
This song, which Frank Proffitt said was a banjo tune and also a play-party song, he learned from the playing of his father, Wiley Proffitt. The words identify it as a song of the Civil War—from the point of view of one of those Southern Yankees. “Goin’ 'cross the mountain / If I have to crawl / To give Jeff’s men a little taste / Of my rifle
The first line of this song is carved on the simple granite stone marking Frank’s grave in the private Milsap burying ground about a mile from his home.
Frank also gave us two verses of another, play-party version, of this song, sung in Beech Mountain:

Rise up, my true love,
And give me your hand.
I want a wife,
And I know you want a man.

We’ll travel on together,
For soon we must part.
Soon we must part
With a sad and aching heart.

Source: Traditional Folk Songs from the Anne & Frank Warner Collection - #121, page 293, collected from Frank Proffitt in 1959

Subject: RE: Origins: Going Across the Mountain
From: GUEST,Joseph H
Date: 20 Jul 20 - 01:30 AM

This doesn't add much, but I have a deep connection with this song. My ancestor Thomas Loyd was a "southern yankee" and joined the Union in Madison County, NC. He ended up with the 3rd NC Mounted Infantry (Kirk's Raiders) and fought in NC and TN. I am still trying to find out if my ancestor's regiment ended up fighting along side John Proffitt's (Frank's Grandfather) regiment--the 13th Tennessee Calvary.

Subject: RE: Origins: Going Across the Mountain
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 20 Jul 20 - 07:38 PM

This article from SingOut may be of some interest. https://singout.org/going-across-the-mountain-memorial-day-2018/

Subject: RE: Origins: Going Across the Mountain
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 21 - 03:41 AM

Clifton Hicks' assertion that Going Across the Mountain has its roots in earlier war songs has no basis in fact. He offers no evidence, but just has a feeling that it shouldn't be attributed as an original Civil War song. In reality it is a song and tune that has its origin in traditional play-party songs and tunes like Charlie, Sally Goodin', Going Across the Sea, and a very pronounced similarity to the chorus of Going to Italy as recorded by Bascom Lunsford. That Proffitt knew a local play-party version indicates that the tune was endemic to the area around Beech Mountain. To dismiss it as not lyrics that John Proffitt (1837-1913) wrote, is to also dismiss the experience he had in the Civil War, "going across the mountain" from his family home in Baker's Gap, Cracker Neck community, Johnson County, TN (on the North Carolina border just west of Beech Mountain) to join the Union 13th Voluntary Cavalry, Company M, in early February 1864 while they skirmished on the Cumberland Plateau northeast of Nashville. Frank couldn't have learned the song from his grandfather, as his grandfather died 5 months after Frank was born in Laurel Bloomery, TN, on June 1, 1913 (d.- Nov 24, 1965), where his family had settled in 1883 after the war. Frank was 3 years old when the family moved to Watauga County, just a few miles from the old family home near Baker's Gap. He learned the song from his father, William Wiley Proffitt (1874-1954), and as others have noted, there is no other evidence of the song being documented from any other source.