Henry Clay Work

His career came of age at the Civil War's outbreak; willing to contribute to the Union struggle, Work started writing patriotic tunes for Chicagoan publishing firm Root & Cady.

Impressed by "Kingdom Coming" (1862), Root hired him for the war's duration, during which he drove the business to unprecedented prosperity and produced some of the most memorable wartime songs, most notably, "Marching Through Georgia" (1865).

[14] These fostered a deep interest in philology; aged twelve, he noted his "considerable progress" in inventing two languages, "one in which English letters were used to form new words, and one that had an alphabet of its own.

[1] Then aged fourteen, he reluctantly commenced his apprenticeship as a tailor, but his father soon allowed him to pursue a career more "congenial to his tastes" in printing, specializing in typesetting music.

Instead of sending it to a gazette's "poet's corner," he submitted it to Edwin P. Christy, founder of the renowned eponymous minstrel troupe based in New York City that had initiated Stephen Foster's career.

[19] This encouraged him to pursue "more ambitious efforts as a composer,"[17] publishing a comic song, "Lilly-Wily Woken", for the New York firm William Hall & Son two years later.

[29] Music, which "aroused herself to meet the exigencies of the times,"[30] was instrumental to raising the Union's spirits, rallying civilians and troops, both White and Black, round their nation's cause.

[31] Folk music enthusiast Irwin Silber notes: "Throughout the war, soldiers and civilians of the Union states were inspired and propagandized by a host of patriotic songs.

"[51] However, contrary to the minstrel tradition, Work exposes the actual struggles endured by African Americans rather than stereotyping or idealizing them as most antebellum musicians such as Stephen Foster and Thomas D. Rice had done.

'"[56]He saw great potential in Work's "gift for composition"[57] and, in a time that "called for patriotic songs with a strong Union flavor,"[36] assigned him a songwriting post lasting until the Civil War's end.

The Romantic portrayal of Southern plantation life, with slaves and their owners residing harmoniously, gave uninformed Northern audiences a false impression of African Americans' toil in an era when slavery was growing into a dangerously divisive political issue.

[64] "Kingdom Coming" strays from the mockery of blackface minstrelsy, portraying a realistic picture of plantation life and humanizing slaves rather than presenting them as blithe, docile servants.

Instead of the oppressive master reigning supreme over his subjects as generally observed in minstrel songs, these roles are inverted; the slaves take over the plantation and overcome their overseer.

[74][75] The lattermost, the most well-known of the bunch, is "a delightful comedy tune"[59] narrated by a widowed mother whose son was drafted into the Union army under President Lincoln's Enrollment Act.

[76] At the Civil War's apex, with many Northerners "Copperheads" questioning Lincoln's running of the conflict, Root accelerated the production of Unionist compositions to hike morale up but struggled to recruit enough composers for his firm.

In a June article he admonished compilers of church music books for altering traditional tunes and corrupting their sanctity, followed up by another in July denouncing one of the adapted hymns as "hardly recognizable [and] mutilated.

[83][75] "Kingdom Coming" had been such a major success that numerous takes on the theme of slaves' emancipation sprung up such as Root's "De Day ob Liberty's Comin" (1862).

[92] The last of these is a tragic yet humorous lament distinguished for its employment of German dialect, said to enable "the difficult fear of laughing and crying at the same time":[93] Ah!

[95] The movement gained much traction after the Civil War's close as many moralistic fraternities, eminently, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, called for public education on the perils of alcohol.

"[97] It borrowed elements from contemporary literary realism, documenting the hardships of domestic life with emphasis on women's oppression at the hands of their husband's indulgent habits.

[104] Work wrote other temperance songs after the war, including "Lillie of the Snowstorm" (1866),[105] "King Bibler's Army" (1877), which was moderately successful,[106] and "Shadows on the Floor" (1877), an account of impoverished families' hardships,[107] although none faithfully captured the essence and fame of "Come Home, Father".

[108] In February Work set P. G. T. Beauregard's recent evacuation of Charleston to music; the product, "Ring the Bell, Watchman", reflected the successive toppling of Confederate cities during the war's final weeks.

[127][128] Upon returning to the United States, Work and his brother invested most of their wealth in hundreds of acres of land in Vineland, New Jersey hoping to establishing a profitable fruit farm.

[134] A letter composed in the early 1870s to his correspondent Susie Mitchell paints a grim picture of the depression consuming his postbellum life, worsened by the loss of his son Waldo in 1871:[135] "I think there must be a screw loose somewhere in my physical or mental organization—I am so particular about, and so much annoyed by, trifles, and lose so much time in perfecting unimportant details of plans, many of which are eventually abandoned [...] My nerves seem to be gradually gaining an ascendancy over me—the fastenings which connect the mind and body seem to be growing loose and getting detached.

[133] An 1879 issue of the San Marcos Free Press highlights its ubiquity, claiming that not knowing the song "argues yourself unknown," being "nightly played in theater and concert halls to applauding auditors.

Nothing to do all day, but to read and criticize, find fault or mark errors [...]"[164] Only printing, the career he held since his youth, and attendance at local church services absorbed him.

"[172] That year, he briefly picked up composition again, penning roughly ten songs until 1883, including "The Lost Letter" and "The Prayer on the Pier", but at this point he could only "[clutch] for straws of his former fame.

[183] Florine Thayer McCray writes: "He was of the people, in sympathy with them, and thought not of the small fame which comes from the critical sanction of a few self-instituted judges of literary and musical form.

[190] Assuming she reciprocated his affection but also desperate for a gratifying relationship, Work established a correspondence with her, writing 40 lengthy letters from 1869 to 1883 "in a small almost perfect penmanship" which "concealed his feelings in the formal style of the day.

[209] Another writer remarked: "His melodies are simple and natural, but as unlike and varies as the emotions to which they give expression; but, whether grave or comic, they possess inspirational qualities that, as musical compositions, arouse the imagination and fasten themselves upon the memory of the hearer.