The Southern Soldier Boy: A Song History

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"The Southern Soldier Boy" was published in Richmond in 1863 by the lithographers Geo. Dunn & Co., with words credited to Captain G. W. Alexander and a tune borrowed from an existing air, "The Boy with the Auburn Hair."[1][2] Its cover billed it as sung by Sallie Partington in The Virginia Cavalier at the Richmond New Theatre.[1][3] The Ballad Index credits that stage hit with making the song popular, and notes that the hero of the original Confederate text is named Bob Roebuck.[4]

Stereograph of three captured Confederate soldiers in slouch hats standing by a pile of fence rails at Gettysburg

Brady & Co., Rebel Prisoners, Gettysburg, albumen silver print from glass negative, July 1863. Shown for its subject, Confederate soldiers of the song's year; it has no connection to the song.

The lyricist was George W. Alexander, a Confederate captain who served as commandant of Richmond's Castle Thunder prison from October 1862 to February 1864.[1][5][6] Castle Thunder's officials, and Alexander in particular, became notorious for violence; an inquiry authorized by the Confederate Congress in April 1863 heard charges of unauthorized lashings and of his using a large dog to cow prisoners.[5] When he died in 1895, the Richmond Dispatch recalled that he had been a U.S. Navy engineer before the war and that he wrote several plays staged at the Richmond Theatre, among them The Virginia Cavalier.[6]

The song outlived the Confederacy in oral tradition, where Bob Roebuck turned into "Barbro Buck" and much of the original political content fell away.[4] Vance Randolph collected a version in Center Point, Arkansas, in 1930, and a fragment appears in Cecil Sharp's Appalachian collection.[4] Maureen Sellers includes it in Songs Of The Civil War, a 60-page book of Appalachian dulcimer arrangements of songs popular during the war, all in DAD tuning (this one with a capo at the first fret), published by Fingers Of Steel.[7]

Our book that contains the song "The Southern Soldier Boy"

Sources

  1. The Huntington Library, via Calisphere: "The Southern soldier boy: song as sung by Miss Sallie Partington in the 'Virginia Cavalier' at the Richmond New Theater".
  2. Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University: "The Southern Soldier Boy. Song.".
  3. Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives: "The Southern Soldier Boy".
  4. The Traditional Ballad Index: "The Southern Soldier Boy (Barbro Buck)".
  5. Encyclopedia Virginia: "Castle Thunder Prison".
  6. Civil War Richmond: "1895-03-03, Richmond Dispatch: G. W. Alexander obituary".
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Maureen Sellers, Songs Of The Civil War".
  8. Image: Brady & Co., Rebel Prisoners, Gettysburg, albumen silver print from glass negative, July 1863. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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