Septimus Winner

He used his own name, and also the pseudonyms Alice Hawthorne, Percy Guyer, Mark Mason, Apsley Street, and Paul Stenton.

Although largely self-taught in the area of music, he did take lessons from Leopold Meignen around 1853, but by that time he was already an established instrumental teacher, and performed locally with various ensembles.

[1] In addition to composing popular songs, Winner also produced more than 200 instruction method books for more than twenty-three instruments.

Another of his successes, and still familiar, is "Der Deitcher's Dog", or "Oh Where, oh Where Ish Mine Little Dog Gone", a text that Winner set to the German folk tune "In Lauterbach hab' ich mein' Strumpf verlor'n"[2] in 1864, which recorded massive sales during Winner's lifetime.

[5] In 1862, Winner was court-martialed and briefly jailed, accused of treason, because he wrote and published a song entitled "Give Us Back Our Old Commander: Little Mac, the People's Pride".

It concerned General George B. McClellan, whom President Abraham Lincoln had just fired from the command of the Army of the Potomac.

[1] Winner's 1865 love song of the American Civil War, Sweet Ellie Rhee (or "Carry Me Back to Tennessee"), is widely considered to have been introduced to South Africa by Americans working in the Transvaal gold mines, and to have greatly influenced the well-known Afrikaans song Sarie Marais.

Sweet Ellie Rhee, so dear to me Is lost forever more Our home was down in Tennessee Before this cruel war Then carry me back to Tennessee Back where I long to be Amid the fields of yellow corn To my darling Ellie Rhee Artist Margaret F. Winner was his youngest daughter.