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FOLK-SONGS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 47
and even more in pinching poverty and lack of resource. But the griefs and sacrifices of these women of the city tenement and noisome alley have found no place in the genteel poetry of the war, and have only been expressed in the rude verse of the street ballad. Says one of them: —
It was in the month of April,
As I walked out one day, I met a woman weeping
As I walked down Broadway. She was weeping for her Johnny,
Her dear and only son, Who joined the Northern army
To fight in Washington. O Johnny ! I gave you a schoolin',
I gave you a trade likewise, And when you joined the Volunteers,
You know 't was my advice."
The New York ballad writers were not entirely confined to the English language, the large foreign population furnishing recruits of all nations. There is not, so far as I have seen, any original German song devoted to the Union cause, but The Red, White, and Blue, and other patriotic songs, were published in German text; and of Germanized-English songs, most if not all the product of variety theatre performers, there were a great many, including the extremely popular I 'm going to fight mit Siegel. |
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