Music in the Ranks: The Function and Symbolic Roles of Union Army Field Musicians

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Edward G. FitzGerald

Prof. SchmidtHIST 491May 10, 2006

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NTRODUCTION

Since the end of one of America’s most defining struggles, the Civil War, historians have produced a great deal of literature concerned with the life of the common soldier.However, this vast narrative has neglected a small yet significant group of men and boysoldiers, the drummers, fifers, and buglers. Writing his memoirs in 1915, Enos B. Vail of the Twentieth New York pointed out, “I never read any work on the Civil War whichmentioned anything about the Fife and Drum Corps. . . [they] constitute[ed] an important part of the army.” It is only through the personal accounts of these musicians and a fewless-than-scholarly works that we can begin to produce any sort of picture of the life theyled. The lack of true historical research in this area has left a void which has been filledwith romantic myths. The majority of those who served as musicians were not children asmuch of the fictional literature on this topic would imply. Rather, a small sampling showsthat most field musicians were men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-nine. Thisis not to say that boys below this age group did not serve in the ranks. Indeed, the story of the fifers, drummers, and buglers is in part a story of childhood warped by the ardor of asociety mobilized for war. This brief history of Civil War field musicians will attempt todiscern both the social background of the average musician and his experience during histime in the military.

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Even though boys under the age of thirteen were not often incorporated into militaryservice, the celebration of boy heroes and the romantic culture of the “drummer boy” was asignificant part of Northern society. The notions that surround this character, real or fantasy,speak both to the nature nineteenth century childhood and to that society’s conceptions of morality. They represent the currents of both fervid patriotism and Christian idealism that flowed beneath a society eager to ignore the reality of the war.

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Enos B. Vail,

Reminiscences of a Boy in the Civil War

(privately printed, 1915), 4. For the purposes of understanding type of men who participated in the war as drummers, fifers, and buglers, a study of Illinois field musicians is offered.

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While the lives of these non-combatants did not differ greatly from that of ordinarysoldiers, their role in the army, was as an instrument that played literally to the psychology of themen. Developed from traditions rooted in Europe, their role was important in the theory of nineteenth century warfare. The drum was the heart and the sole of the unit. It was the first soundheard in the morning and the last at night. Its cadence kept weary men marching. It both calledthem into battle and sounded the retreat. Its tone could lead a parade or drive a dishonorable manfrom the ranks.

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Since ancient times when raucous bands of Turks used the sound of bells, horns, anddrums to strike fear into their enemies, music has played an integral role in the military. Over time, this tradition spread into Europe where it was adapted and employed in the western style of warfare. By the dawn of the eighteenth-century, the loosely organized, hand-to-hand armies of earlier times had developed into formally structured units and methods of waging war. Thesoldier was now required to perform as a part of a team, almost as an automaton, strictly obedientand entirely reliant upon the commands of his superiors. In these new armies military music became an important part of the training of soldiers in the tactics and carefully choreographedmaneuvers necessary to achieve the efficient, machine-like movement of men on the field of

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Unfortunately this paper, already restricted by the limited availability of writings from white musicians,will not address the lives of black field musicians. Although historians have addressed portions of the storyof black children in the antebellum era and of the black men who served in the U.S. Colored Troops duringthe war, virtually nothing has been written on the young men of color who served as musicians. One other group left out of this paper are the musicians who served in brass bands. Though this may seem like an oddomission for a paper concerned with the lives of Civil War field musicians, the author felt that this wasnecessary in order to limit the scope and manageability of his research and to allow adequate space toaddress the primary subject. The role of the bandsman, though admittedly similar to that of the fieldmusician, did not include performing the camp duties or calls. These men, generally older or moreaccomplished musicians, acted primarily behind the lines and were not subjected to the same degree of hardship experienced by a young man on campaign in the field.

For more information on Civil War brass bands consult Kenneth E. Olson,

Music and Musket: Bands and Bandsman of the Civil War

(Westport, CT:Greenwood Press, 1981).

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