Lorena: A Song History

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"Lorena" was written by two unrelated Websters: the Rev. Henry D. L. Webster supplied the verses and Joseph Philbrick Webster composed the melody.[1][2] Library and score-archive records date the first edition, issued by the Higgins Brothers of Chicago, to 1857, though a Civil War Monitor article gives 1858, so sources differ slightly on the year.[3][4][2] The words are a man's look back at a lost love, turning on separation, duty and memory.[1]

Hand-tinted daguerreotype portrait of a young woman in an oval gilt mat

Southworth and Hawes, Young Woman with Hair Styled in Two Buns, daguerreotype, 1850s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).

Behind the song lies a romance that is usually told as the poet's own experience. As the Civil War Monitor tells it, Henry Webster wrote the poem in 1856 after his engagement to Ella Blocksom ended; the heroine was first called Bertha, and the name was changed when the composer asked for one of three syllables.[2] Zanesville, Ohio, where Webster served as a Universalist pastor and Blocksom lived, still claims the tale as local history.[5]

The song became a favorite of soldiers on both sides of the Civil War, its mood of longing well suited to men far from home.[1][2][6] Southern publishers in New Orleans and Macon issued their own editions, and one Confederate officer is reported to have banned it among his troops for stirring homesickness and desertion.[3][2] It outlived the war: the Metropolitan Quartet recorded it on an Edison Blue Amberol cylinder in 1914, and Hollywood later borrowed the melody for Gone with the Wind (1939) and two John Ford films.[7][6]

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Sources

  1. Song of America: "Lorena".
  2. Civil War Monitor (Laura June Davis): "Lorena".
  3. IMSLP: "Lorena (Webster, Joseph Philbrick)".
  4. Indiana University Lilly Library, Sam DeVincent Collection: "Lorena".
  5. Spectrum News 1: "Famous Civil War Tune Based on Zanesville Woman".
  6. Hymnary.org: "Joseph Philbrick Webster".
  7. Calisphere / UC Santa Barbara Cylinder Audio Archive: "Lorena".