Marching song

“ Every battalion has its marching songs. ”

“ All America loves a band. Even in Washington, the National Capital, the most popular parade ground in the United States, crowds quickly jam the streets to the very curb, as a band leads a parade along the Avenue. For it is a marching band which makes the deepest appeal to the emotions of the human mind and heart. A lively march will bring smiles to the faces, sparkles to the eyes and a rhythmic step to the feet. ”

“ Off we trudged, round the back of the hospital, down the drive, out past the sentry and away along the road. Presently, "Party, march at ease!" Cigarettes were lit, talking was allowed, and someone would raise a tune. How pleasant it is to march to singing! To march to a drum-and-fife band must be wonderful. Or a brass band—! Those joys will never be mine. Almost all the marching I shall have done in the great war will be summed up in these tiny promenades from the hospital to the railway-station, their rhythm sustained by self-raised choruses, none too melodious. ”

“ A brass band will fill a whole street with glamour, and the normal person finds it quite impossible to be out of step with the rhythm of the march. Watch the way in which, as the Pied Piper of Hamelin drew the children after him, the band draws the elders to the window and the children to the street: the appeal is never in vain. Marching in time with the music tired feet forget their weariness, and new strength comes from the reserves of the greater self, liberated at the unspoken appeal of melody and rhythm. ”

“ Like a marching sunset, there, from Leaden Hall to Aldgate,
Flared the crimson cressets—O, her brows were haloed then!—
Then the stirring steeds went by with all their mounted trumpeters,
Then, in ringing harness, a thousand marching men.
Marching—marching—his heart and all the halberdiers,
And his pulses throbbing with the throbbing of the drums;
Marching—marching—his blood and all the burganets!
"Look," she cried, "O, look," she cried, "and now the morrice comes!"
Dancing—dancing—her eyes and all the Lincoln Green,
Robin Hood and Friar Tuck, dancing through the town! ”

“ The strains of music from the hidden orchestra rise and fall to the time of a popular march. No longer the low serenade or the sad sweet lullaby that falls like the rippling of running water on the ears of those who converse, but the strong, joyous marching music that means in so many words, “get your partner and advance upon the food that has been prepared by the first caterer of the World’s Fair City.” ”

“ It is, in fact, so much corrupted in modern times, that what really conveyed no more than a regular principle in marching, has since been made to signify the exercise and evolutions of troops. All the world know how to beat a march, without comprehending the real object, and half the world imagine, that the noise of a drum or fife is nothing more than military parade. ”

“ One after another, human forms reappear upon the scene. The drummers sound their call;—it is the Assembly—the summons to forward march. Tents are struck quickly; luggage rolled and shouldered; arms taken; and away goes an army of brave youths, three short hours ago utterly and miserably "played out", now ready to make a long day's march, or to move upon the enemy, singing as they pass under Logan's windows, "Marching along," "John Brown," etc., ignorant at the moment of the poetic justice which their mighty chorus celebrates. ”

“ The most aggravating thing to the soldiers on a march is the unevenness of the marching. First you are rushed along so that the short legged ones are compelled to double-quick to keep up, and then there will be a halt of perhaps fifteen to thirty minutes when you are kept standing in the broiling sun ”

“ From the moment the music struck up on the parade ground, and the detachments for the guard from the different companies began to file out and march into place, there was always a large concourse of the men in gray making a most interested body of spectators. The smart appearance of the men, the rapid inspection of arms, of haversacks and knapsacks, the march in review, the assignment to posts, the final marching off the field, all seemed to give them great enjoyment. ”

“ The influence of band music on the fighting man’s morale has been recognized since historians began to write. A band, especially a military band, may inspire courage, a wish to fight or a will to win. It beats the rhythm for marching feet and gives a tune for whistling. ”

“ While the band is playing a lively march at one end of the field which is to be used for the games, have the leaders, who have been previously instructed, get all of the folks lined up in couples around the field for a grand march. A couple trained for the occasion leads the march when everybody is in line, marching about the circumference of the field. The leaders start their fancy marching. At one end they turn and march down the center of the field to the far end where the couples separate, the ladies going to the left and the gentlemen to the right. ”

“ Not by the marching lines of figures, fluttering banners, booming bands, nor just by the fact that these marchers were women, and women quite frankly dressed for effect, so that the whole rhythmic mass had a feminine color and dash that made it all gay and delightful. ”

“ And as, with slow and stately pace the chariot moves, drawn by two noble horses, white and black, a chant goes up upon the midnight air, not like the pagan chants of other days, but sweet and gentle as a summer-song, and with a note of triumph in its sound, telling the coming of a hero-chief, who shall be called the Christ, and who will bring great peace and rest to men. And when that song is heard, rising with its sweet strain o’er all the fort, the fires of war and hate are softened in the chieftains’ hearts, and women smile upon their little babes and hug them to their breasts. ”

“ The professional march is truly an inspiration, and in the ‘Chant of the Pilgrims,’ Tannhäuser’s ‘Hymn to Venus,’ and the shepherds’ song, concessions are made to those who demand continuous understandable melody. ”

“ Fife and drum have been heard in every camp and upon all of the battlefields of the world. And for a marching column there is nothing like martial music of the good old-fashioned kind, such as inspired the continental heroes at Lexington, Yorktown and Bunker Hill, and rallied the boys of ’61, and later led them in all the marches through the South. ”

“ Men on the casual march, say, from one billeting place to another, are apt to push ahead stolidly and for the most part in silence. It is hard work, marching under heavy equipment is, and after a few hours of it the strongest individual in the ranks feels the pangs of weariness in his scissoring legs and along his burdened back. ”

“ And thunder in battle chorus!
Chorus.
By the light that lies in our Southern skies,
By the spirits that watch above us;
By the gentle hands in our Summer lands,
And the gentle hearts that love us!
Our father’s faith let us keep till death,
Their fame in its cloudless splendor—
As men who stand for their mother land,
And die—but never surrender!
Chorus.
CHIVALROUS C. S. A. Air—“Vive la Compagnie.”
I’ll sing you a song of the South’s sunny clime,
Chivalrous C. S. A.! ”

“ In an instant, the thousands of throats join in the sound; the roll of song deepens to a diapason; the solemn, forceful march of the melody is irresistible; all France seems to be joining with prayer and power in her loved anthem. ”

“ Starting, softly at first, by the leaders of the chorus, the fierce thrilling chant of the war-song, taken up by the ranks, gathered in strength with every repetition, soon rising to a perfect roar of deep chest notes as the savages, rattling their shields and weapons, threw themselves into the excitement of the thing, beating time with the rhythmic thunder of their feet as the tread of one man, turning themselves hither and thither, muscles quivering, eyeballs rolling in the fierce frenzy of the stimulating exercise. ”

“ And so about the business of our lives we go and then of a sudden there comes again the feeling that crept over us all in the year of the Marching Men. In a moment we are again a part of the moving mass. The old religious exaltation, strange emanation from the man McGregor, returns. In fancy we feel the earth tremble under the feet of the men—the marchers. With a conscious straining of the mind we strive to grasp the processes of the mind of the leader during that year when men sensed his meaning, when they saw as he saw the workers—saw them massed and moving through the world. ”

“ See him go marching past!—he always marches, as if he heard drums beating and he was keeping time. I tell 'em he does hear 'em. He lives all alone up on the edge o' the woods, and folks say he spends most all his time trying to pick march tunes out on the organ. ”

“ We are a Nation's hope and pride,
Blow, bugles, blow!
(Exit All, as bugle call is heard.)
SCENE II—The War
Several boys with drums march in front of tents, which have been arranged on the stage. They sing, beating drums softly during chorus, and march around the tents.
Tune: MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA
Marching toward the battlefield,
We go with sword and drum;
Marching toward the battlefield,
O, see the army come.
Rat-a-tat, a-rat-a-tat, So loudly beats the drum, While we are singing of Lincoln.
Chorus: Hurrah! hurrah! who'll be a Volunteer? Hurrah! hurrah! O what have we to fear? ”

“ To guard against surprises, we are all warned to pay especial attention to the beat of the drum; always halting when we hear the long roll beat, and marching at the beat of the long march. We are more on the alert regarding the enemy now. ”

“ This mention of canteen songs recalls the fact that the French infantryman beguiles the tedium of route-marching by songs, interminably long songs which go on and on for miles; in recalling what the next verse will be, a man forgets the number of miles between him and the end of the march, or he thinks he may be able to, which amounts to very nearly the same thing. ”

“ Hence the afternoon hours of the march were especially oppressive, and though the sledge with its load was positively lighter, our strength to drag it had diminished in still greater measure. It would be a great mistake to imagine that exercise of itself, without necessary rest, increases the capacity of marching. ”

“ When the brave veterans set forth amid all the hardships of piercing winter winds and boundless wastes of snow, the patriotic band, their hearts kept warm by the patriotic fire within, toiling on without a murmur, and singing snatches of song to sustain their drooping spirits, at last reached the goal ”

“ It seems almost instinctive, perhaps derived from the rhythms of breathing and walking, or the movement of ripples and rolling waves. Marching is but orderly walking, and the dance, in its primitive form, is a development of marching. ”

“ When you see heads gashed open and eyes burning and children lying hurt on the side of the road, when you are John Lewis and you've been beaten within an inch of your life on Sunday, how do you wake up Monday and keep on marching? ”

“ Nothing could be more beautifully accurate than the ordered march and exact discipline of this little band, their horses stepping proudly out, as if by one common impulse, in perfect time to the occasional notes of the lituus, or cavalry trumpet, by which all their manœuvres were directed; and the men, hardy and fine-looking figures, in the prime of life, bestriding with an air of perfect mastery their fiery chargers, and bearing the weight of their heavy panoply beneath the burning sunshine of the Italian noon, as though a march of thirty miles were the merest child's play. ”

“ THE SONG OF SHERMAN'S ARMY
A pillar of fire by night,
A pillar of smoke by day,
Some hours of march—then a halt to fight,
And so we hold our way;
Some hours of march—then a halt to fight,
As on we hold our way.
Over mountain and plain and stream,
To some bright Atlantic bay,
With our arms aflash in the morning beam,
We hold our festal way;
With our arms aflash in the morning beam,
We hold our checkless way!
There is terror wherever we come,
There is terror and wild dismay
When they see the Old Flag and hear the drum
Announce us on our way ”

“ Go to the field where honor calls,
And win your lady there.
Remember that our brightest smiles
Are for the true and brave,
And that our tears are all for those
Who fill a soldier’s grave.
Chorus.
THE BANNER SONG. By James B. Marshall.
Up, up with the banner, the foe is before us,
His bayonets bristle, his sword is unsheathed,
Charge, charge on his line with harmonious chorus,
For the prayers go with us that beauty has breathed.
He fights for the power of despot and plunder,
While we are defending our altars and homes ”

“ Children danced on the outskirts of the group, hopping up and down, screaming in glee. Women waved banners, sang along with the band. And the music shouted out across the sand, a triumphal march with a lively beat.
A fat man led the procession. ”

“ The movement of a body of men from one place to another. In marching it cannot be too strongly inculcated that every just movement and manœuvre depends upon the correct equality of march established and practiced by all the troops of the same army, and that when this is not attended to confusion must follow on the junction of several battalions. ”

“ All marching should be done in straight lines, following the direction of the walls of the rooms, the change of direction being made precisely at each corner. The leader and his partner should lead the march; moving slowly once or twice round the room, to give all the couples time to fall in and follow. ”

“ Shackburg, wit, musician, and surgeon, and one evening after mess he produced a tune, which he earnestly commended, as a well-known piece of military music, to the officers of the militia. The joke succeeded, 354and Yankee Doodle was hailed by acclamation “their own march.”
This account is somewhat apocryphal, as there is no song: the tune in the United States is a march; there are no words to it of a national character. The only words ever affixed to the air in this country is the following doggerel quatrain ”