Booknotes: Sheet Music of the Confederacy

New Arrival:

• Sheet Music of the Confederacy: A History by Robert I. Curtis (McFarland, 2024).

From the description: "The creation of the Confederate States of America and the subsequent Civil War inspired composers, lyricists, and music publishers in Southern and border states, and even in foreign countries, to support the new nation." The music fulfilled a number of purposes and uses common to societies at war. "Confederate-imprint sheet music articulated and encouraged Confederate nationalism, honored soldiers and military leaders, comforted family and friends, and provided diversion from the hardships of war."

A massive study of over 500 pages, Robert Curtis's Sheet Music of the Confederacy is "the first comprehensive history" of the subject. "It covers works published before the war in Southern states that seceded from the Union, and those published during the war in Union occupied capitals, border and Northern states, and foreign countries. It is also the first work to examine the contribution of postwar Confederate-themed sheet music to the South's response to its defeat, to the creation and fostering of Lost Cause themes, and to the promotion of national reunion and reconciliation."

Curtis divides the study into two main parts. The first examines pro-Confederate sheet music created during the secession and wartime periods. As mentioned above, the range of the study branches out into the Border States and northern cities. The second part of the book addresses sheet music produced during the Reconstruction and postwar national reconciliation periods through to the beginning of the Spanish-American War in 1898. Music from foreign countries is also included.

A great deal of vital information is housed in the appendix section as well. The first appendix defines and describes in great detail the features and composition of what was known as "sheet music," the basic elements of which were title/cover page, music, and lyrics. Differing from previous works by "Crandall, Hoogerwerf, Parrish, and Willingham," that first appendix provides us with a "missing set of criteria necessary to identify Confederate-imprint sheet music and to distinguish it from Confederate-related sheet music" (pg. 3). Other appendices contain discussions of publication dates, period song and music terminology, copyright records, and lyric variability.

Distinguishing his work from its more general-focus predecessors, Curtis cites four "innovations" present in this volume: (1) this book is "the first study to focus on sheet music as representative artifacts in the material culture of the South during the late half of the 19th century;" (2) it is the first study to comprehensively address the period before, during, and after the war; (3) it is distinctive in its "expanded analysis of the elements that composed the Confederate sheet music business in the South during the Civil War;" and (4) it differs from previous works in the "prominence given to the visual aspects" of the music as seen through sheet music cover illustrations (pg. 4-5). Those covers, aside from being filled with vital bibliographical information, were artistic forms in their own right, and a massive number of these are reproduced at full-page size in the book.

I have to admit that the historiography of Civil War music is way outside of my knowledge base, but this volume has all the appearances of a major contribution to the field.