It is sung from the perspective of a Union soldier who had participated in Sherman's March to the Sea; he looks back on the momentous triumph after which Georgia became a "thoroughfare for freedom" and the Confederacy was left on its last legs.
[6] Music was of utmost importance in the Civil War;[7] journalist Irwin Silber comments: "soldiers and civilians of the Union states were inspired and propagandized by a host of patriotic songs.
[13] The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians notes: "More than perhaps any other songwriter Work captured the deeply felt emotions of the Civil War [...].
"[14] For instance, the minstrel tune "Kingdom Coming" accompanied African American troops marching down South[15] and "The Song of a Thousand Years" consoled civilians during the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania.
[16] This sense of sympathy for civilian struggles, along with his mastery of melody[17] fueled one of the most successful songwriting careers of the war.
Following three years of a bloody stalemate,[24] Sherman's capture of Atlanta, a pivotal Southern city, proved a deliverance for the Northern cause.
[28] Sherman recalls in his memoirs: "[Maj. Gen. Hardee, his main rival, had] not forced us to use anything but a skirmish-line, though at several points he had erected fortifications and tried to alarm us by bombastic threats.
"[29] After a series of minor skirmishes and just two notable engagements, at Griswoldville and Fort McAllister, the Union army moved into Savannah on December 21.
Firstly, troops left destruction and paucity in their tracks as they scavenged the land for food and resources and laid waste to public buildings and infrastructure.
Over 14,000 joined Sherman's troops in Georgia with brisk enthusiasm once they passed near their native plantation, cementing the campaign as a milestone of emancipation.
Civilians whose territory and resources was being ravaged before their eyes grew so appalled at the conflict that their will to fight on dissipated, as Sherman had intended.
Yes, and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears, When they saw the honor'd flag they had not seen for years; Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers, While we were marching through Georgia.
So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and her train, Sixty miles in latitude—three hundred to the main; Treason fled before us for resistance was in vain, While we were marching through Georgia.
[43] The chorus alludes to the Jubilee in biblical antiquity, a semicentennial rite freeing certain servants from bondage after 49 years of toil.
[44] In the Civil War context, the allusion symbolizes the end of African-American servitude and the advent of a new life of freedom;[45] this metaphor also features in Work's 1862 piece "Kingdom Coming".
"[46] A retelling of Southern Unionists' celebration of the Northern troops defines the third stanza;[45] they "[weep] with joyful tears / When they [see] the honor'd flag they had not seen for years.
[41] The final stanza celebrates the success of the march, after which "treason fled before [the Union troops] for resistance was in vain".
[49] Historian Christian McWhirter evaluates the song's lyrical and thematic framework: On the surface, it celebrated Sherman's campaign from Atlanta to Savannah; but it also told listeners how to interpret Union victory.
Speaking as a white soldier, Work turned the targeting of Confederate civilian property into a celebration of unionism and emancipation.
A soloist is intended to sing the individual stanzas, and a joint SATB choir accompanies the solo voice for the chorus.
[41][51] Like much of Work's wartime catalog,[13] "Marching Through Georgia" captures contemporary attitudes among Northern civilians—in this case, jubilation over Sherman's fruitful campaign.
[45] Accordingly, the song imparts passionate patriotism and American pride,[52] such that it "rubbed Yankee salt into one of the sorest wounds of the Civil War," in musicologist Sigmund Spaeth's words.
Selling 500,000 copies of sheet music within 12 years, it became one of the most successful wartime tunes and Work's most profitable hit up to that point.
[59] Music biographer David Ewen regards it as "the greatest of his war songs,"[60] and Carl S. Lowden deems it his very best work, in part owing to its "soul-stirring" production and longevity.
[61] Writer Edwin Tribble opines that Work's postbellum fame, the little he had, rested solely on the success of "Marching Through Georgia",[62] citing a letter he wrote to his long-time correspondent Susie Mitchell: "It is really surprising that I have excited so much curiosity and interest here [at an annual encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)], not only among romantic young women but among all classes.
When he reviewed the national encampment of the GAR in 1890, the hundreds of bands present played the tune every time they passed him for an unbroken seven hours.
[65] Eyewitnesses claim that "his patience collapsed and he declared that he would never again attend another encampment until every band in the United States had signed an agreement not to play 'Marching Though Georgia' in his presence.
Irwin Silber deems it the most despised Unionist song in the South owing to it evoking a devastated Georgia at the hands of Sherman's frantic army.
When tasked to play a fitting song for the Georgia delegation, the convention's band broke into Work's piece; music historian John Tasker Howard remarks: "[...] when the misguided leader, stronger on geography than history, swung into Marching Through Georgia, he was greeted by a silence that turned into hisses and boos noisier than the applause he had heard before.
[83] "Marching Through Georgia" was additionally incorporated in Ken Burns' documentary The Civil War (1990) and in Charles Ives' orchestral suite Three Places in New England.