During the American Civil War, it was adopted as a de facto national anthem of the Confederacy, along with "The Bonnie Blue Flag" and "God Save the South."

[3] As originally performed, a soloist or small group stepped forward and sang the verses, and the whole company answered at different times; the repeated line "look away" was probably one part sung in unison like this.

[7] According to musicologist Hans Nathan, "Dixie" resembles other material that Dan Emmett wrote for Bryant's Minstrels, and in writing it, the composer drew on a number of earlier works.

[10] As shown by the original sheet music (see below), the dance tune used with "Dixie" by Bryant's Minstrels, who introduced the song on the New York stage, was "Albany Beef", an Irish-style reel later included by Dan Emmett in an instructional book he co-authored in 1862.

[4] Emmett's lyrics as they were originally intended reflect the hostile mood of many white Americans in the late 1850s towards increasing abolitionist sentiments in the United States.

[citation needed] While "Dixie" evolved and took many forms, with performers frequently adding their own verses or parodic alterations, the chorus largely remained unchanged.

These variants standardized the spelling and made the song more militant, replacing the slave scenario with specific references to the conflict or to Northern or Southern pride.

In Yankee land I'll take my stand, Won't live or die in Dixie[27] Soldiers on both sides wrote endless parody versions of the song.

Often these discussed the banalities of camp life: "Pork and cabbage in the pot, / It goes in cold and comes out hot," or, "Vinegar put right on red beet, / It makes them always fit to eat."

[31] The playbill for Jerry Bryant's Minstrel Show dated Monday, April 4, 1859, lists the first performance of "Dixie's Land" at Mechanics' Hall, New York.

"[45] He claimed at one point to have based the first part of "Dixie" on "Come Philander Let's Be Marchin, Every One for His True Love Searchin", which he described as a "song of his childhood days."

[37] Despite the disputed authorship, Firth, Pond & Co. paid Emmett $300 for all rights to "Dixie" on February 11, 1861, perhaps fearing complications spurred by the impending Civil War.

One strong assertion of the Snowden's claim is the point of view of the original lyrics—not making fun of "darkies," but describing relationships between the mistress of a house and her beau, along with the residents of the "Quarters."

This unique point of view reflects the life circumstances of the Snowden family matriarch on her birthplace plantation in Maryland, prior to moving to Ohio.

[full citation needed] James H. Street says that "Johaan Dixie" was a Haarlem (Manhattan Island) farmer who decided that his slaves were not profitable because they were idle during the New York winter, so he sent them to Charleston where they were sold.

"Dixie" quickly gained wide recognition and status as a minstrel standard, and it helped rekindle interest in plantation material from other troupes, particularly in the third act.

On the surface "Dixie" seems an unlikely candidate for a Southern hit; it has a Northern composer, stars a black protagonist, is intended as a dance song, and lacks any of the patriotic bluster of most national hymns and marches.

Considered as an intolerable nuisance when first the streets re-echoed it from the repertoire of wandering minstrels, it now bids fair to become the musical symbol of a new nationality, and we shall be fortunate if it does not impose its very name on our country.

[66] Albert Pike's enjoyed the most popularity; the Natchez (Mississippi) Courier published it on May 30, 1861, as "The War Song of Dixie," followed by Werlein, who again credited Viereck for composition.

Poet John Hill Hewitt wrote in 1862 that "The homely air of 'Dixie,' of extremely doubtful origin ... [is] generally believed to have sprung from a noble stock of Southern stevedore melodies.

[72] On April 10, 1865, one day after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee, Lincoln addressed a White House crowd: I propose now closing up by requesting you play a certain piece of music or a tune.

The New York Weekly wrote, "... no one ever heard of Dixie's land being other than Manhattan Island until recently, when it has been erroneously supposed to refer to the South, from its connection with pathetic negro allegory.

Dixie is as lively and popular an air today as it ever was, and its reputation is not confined to the American continent ... [W]herever it is played by a big, strong band the auditors cannot help keeping time to the music.

In 1905 the United Daughters of the Confederacy mounted a campaign to acknowledge an official Southern version of the song (one that would purge it forever of its African American associations).

"[83] As late as 1934, the music journal The Etude asserted that "the sectional sentiment attached to Dixie has been long forgotten; and today it is heard everywhere—North, East, South, West.

His grave marker, placed 20 years after his death, reads, Beginning in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans have frequently criticised "Dixie", saying it is a racist relic of the Confederacy and a reminder of decades of white domination and segregation.

For example, Sam Dennison writes that "Today, the performance of 'Dixie' still conjures visions of an unrepentant, militarily recalcitrant South, ready to reassert its aged theories of white supremacy at any moment....

On the television series The Dukes of Hazzard, which takes place in a fictional county in Georgia, the musical car horn of the General Lee plays the initial twelve notes of the melody from the song.

"[99] On the other hand, Poole sees the "Dixie" car horn, as used on the General Lee from the TV show and mimicked by white Southerners, as another example of the song's role as a symbol of "working-class revolt.

Mickey Newbury's "An American Trilogy" (often performed by Elvis Presley) combines "Dixie" with the Union's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the negro spiritual "All My Trials".