For The Dear Old Flag I Die: A Song History

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"For the Dear Old Flag I Die!" joins verses by the poet George Cooper to music by Stephen Foster, and it was issued in New York by Horace Waters in 1863.[1][2][3] Its title page framed the song as the dying speech of a drummer boy struck down at Gettysburg.[1] The original sheet, catalogued as a probable first edition, has an ornamental red and blue border on its title page and is scored for solo voice with a refrain for four mixed voices and piano; only the first verse sits under the music, with the other two printed as text.[1]

Civil War carte-de-visite photograph of a young drummer boy in Union uniform with his drum

Unidentified young drummer boy in Union uniform playing drum, carte de visite, 1861–65. Liljenquist Family Collection, Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

The song belongs to the last, crowded chapter of Foster's career. After moving to New York in 1860 he turned out parlor ballads, minstrel numbers, Sunday-school music, war songs and comic pieces, and he died at Bellevue Hospital on January 13, 1864, only months after this piece was published.[4] Cooper, whom Foster dubbed "the left wing of the song factory," was his chief partner in those final two years, and the pair produced more than twenty songs together.[5][6] Cooper's songwriting, as one archive summarizes it, ran from comic music-hall numbers to war songs such as this one.[6]

Recorded versions of the song are few.[7] One notable revival came in 2013, when Vince Gill recorded it under the shortened title "Dear Old Flag" for the anthology Divided & United: The Songs of the Civil War.[8][9]

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Sources

  1. HathiTrust Digital Library: "For the dear old flag I die!" (catalog record).
  2. University of Pittsburgh Library System: "Foster's Complete Songs".
  3. IMSLP: "For the Dear Old Flag I Die (Foster, Stephen)".
  4. University of Pittsburgh Library System: "The Life and Music of Stephen Collins Foster".
  5. HistoryNet (MHQ): "Stephen Foster's Civil War".
  6. American Music at Pitt: "Cooper, George".
  7. Bluegrass Today: "150 Years of Civil War Music".
  8. ATO Records: "Divided & United: The Songs of the Civil War".
  9. Civil War Monitor: "Divided & United: The Songs of the Civil War (2013)".