PICKING COTTON
PICKING COTTON

Dan Emmett, who wrote the original Dixie, which has been paraphrased and changed and adapted nearly as frequently as Yankee Doodle was born at Mount Vernon, Ohio, in 1815. He came from a family all of whose members had a local reputation, still traditional in that part of the country, as musicians. In his own case this talent, if given a fair chance for development, would have amounted to genius. He began life as a printer, but soon abandoned his trade to join the band of musicians connected with a circus company. He was not long in discovering that he could compose songs of the kind in use by clowns; one of the most popular of these was Old Dan Tucker. Its success was so great that Emmett followed it with many others. They were all negro melodies, and many of them won great popularity. Finally he took to negro impersonations, singing his own songs in the ring, while he accompanied himself on the banjo. He made a specialty of old men, and he declares with pride that when he had blackened his face, and donned his wig of kinky white hair, he was “the best old negro that ever lived.” He became such a favorite with the patrons of the circus in the South and West, that at last—partly by chance, and partly through intention—he became a full-fledged actor. This was in 1842, at the old Chatham Theater in New York City, when with two companions he gave a mixed performance, made up largely of songs and dances typical of slave life and character. The little troupe was billed as “The Virginia Minstrels,” and their popularity with the public was instantaneous.

This was the beginning of negro minstrelsy, which was destined to have such a wide popularity in America. From New York the pioneer company went to Boston, and later on sailed for England, leaving the newly-discovered field to the host of imitators who were rapidly dividing their success with them. Emmett had great success in the British Isles, and remained abroad for several years. When he returned to New York, he joined the Dan Bryant Minstrel Company, which then held sway in Bryant’s Theater on lower Broadway, which was at that time one of the most popular resorts in New York City. Emmett was engaged to write songs and walk-arounds and take part in the nightly performances. It was while he was with Bryant that Dixie was composed.

Emmett is still living and resides at Mount Vernon, Ohio, where he hopes to end his days. The old man is a picturesque figure on the streets. In his prime he was one of the mid-century dandies of New York City, but now, with calm indifference to the conventional, he usually carries a long staff and wears his coat fastened in at the waist by a bit of rope. His home is a little cottage on the edge of town, where he lives entirely alone. On almost any warm afternoon he can be found seated before his door reading, but he is ready enough to talk with the chance visitor whose curiosity to meet the composer of one of the National Songs of America, has brought him thither. A newspaper man who recently went to talk with the old minstrel found him seated in the shade by his house with a book open before him. As he went up the path, he said, for he had some doubt in his own mind,—

“Are you Dan Emmett, who wrote Dixie?”

“Well, I have heard of the fellow; sit down,” and Emmett motioned to the steps.

“Won’t you tell me how the song was written?”

“Like most everything else I ever did,” said Emmett, “it was written because it had to be done. One Saturday night, in 1859, as I was leaving Bryant’s Theater, where I was playing, Bryant called after me, ‘I want a walk-’round for Monday, Dan.’

“The next day it rained and I stayed indoors. At first when I went at the song I couldn’t get anything. But a line,

kept repeating itself in my mind, and I finally took it for my start. The rest wasn’t long in coming. And that’s the story of how Dixie was written.

“It made a hit at once, and before the end of the week everybody in New York was whistling it. Then the South took it up and claimed it for its own. I sold the copyright for five hundred dollars, which was all I ever made from it. I’ll show you my first copy.”

He went into the house and returned in a moment with a yellow, worn-looking manuscript in his hand.

“That’s Dixie,” he said, holding it up for inspection. “I am going to give it to some historical society in the South, one of these days, for though I was born here in Ohio, I count myself a Southerner, as my father was a Virginian.”

Dixie Land was without question the most famous of all the Southern war songs. But it was the tune, as in the case of Yankee Doodle, and not the words that gave it its great power to fire the heart. It is claimed that Emmett appropriated the tune from an old negro air, which is quite probable.

The only poem set to the famous air of Dixie which has any literary merit is one that was written by General Albert Pike. Some one has said that it is worthy of notice that the finest Puritan lyric we have was written by an Englishwoman, Mrs. Felicia Hemans, and the most popular Southern war song was written by a Yankee, a native of Massachusetts. Albert Pike was born in Boston, December 29, 1809, but most of his boyhood was spent in Newburyport. He became a teacher, but in 1831 visited what was then the wild region of the Southwest with a party of trappers. He afterward edited a paper at Little Rock, and studied law. He served in the Mexican War with distinction, and on the breaking out of the Rebellion enlisted, on the Confederate side, a force of Cherokee Indians, whom he led at the battle of Pea Ridge. After the war he edited the Memphis Appeal till 1868, when he settled in Washington as a lawyer. He has written a number of fine poems, and retired from the profession of law in 1880, to devote himself to literature and Freemasonry. Mr. Pike’s version of Dixie is as follows,—

ALBERT PIKE
ALBERT PIKE

Since the war Dixie has been as favorite a tune with bands of music throughout the North as has Yankee Doodle. Abraham Lincoln set the example for this. A war correspondent recalls an incident which occurred only a night or two before Mr. Lincoln was assassinated. The President had returned from Richmond, and a crowd called with a band to tender congratulations and a serenade. The great man who was so soon to be the victim of the assassin’s bullet appeared in response to calls and thanked his audience for the compliment. Several members of his Cabinet surrounded him, and it was a very interesting and dramatic occasion. Just as he was closing his brief remarks, Mr. Lincoln said: “I see you have a band with you. I should like to hear it play Dixie. I have consulted the Attorney-General, who is here by my side, and he is of the opinion that Dixie belongs to us. Now play it.” The band struck up the old tune, and played it heartily. As the strains of the music rang out upon the air, cheer after cheer went up from the throats of the hundreds of happy men who had called to congratulate Mr. Lincoln upon the return of peace. It was that great soul’s olive branch which he held out to the South.

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ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ABRAHAM LINCOLN