“The Dying Fifer”
Description
"When the battle was hot and raging Shot and shell around did fly... When I heard a piercing cry." The ship's fifer is mortally wounded. He sends dying messages to his mother and the rest of his family
Notes
Broadside Bodleian Harding B 31(29) seems to be exactly the source for Smith/Hatt, word-for-word, including parenthesis and headnote "Composed by C.G. Wright, on board the U.S. Steam-ship Mississippi, (New Orleans.) Air: James Bird; or Dying Californian."
Broadside Bodleian Harding B 31(29): H. De Marsan dating per _Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song_ by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site. - BS
Cross references
- cf. "James Bird" [Laws A5] (tune)
- cf. "The Dying Californian (I)" (tune, per broadside Bodleian Harding B 31(29))
Broadsides
- Bodleian, Harding B 31(29), "Our Fifer-Boy," H. De Marsan (New York), 1861-1864
References
- BrownII 227, "The Dying Fifer" (1 text)
- Smith/Hatt, pp. 94-95, "Our Fifer Boy" (1 text)
- Roud #1977
- BI, BrII227