{"id":3159,"date":"2010-08-07T17:29:04","date_gmt":"2010-08-07T22:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=3159"},"modified":"2013-07-26T16:49:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-26T21:49:40","slug":"a-battle-of-the-bands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2010\/08\/07\/a-battle-of-the-bands\/","title":{"rendered":"A Battle of the Bands"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This weekend, Northfield, Minnesota, has been host to the 2010 Vintage Band Festival<\/a>.\u00a0 The four-day festival draws brass bands from as far away as Helsinki, Finland.\u00a0 One of the highlights of the weekend was a reenactment of a Civil War \u201cbattle of the bands,\u201d with two bands in historical costume facing off across the Cannon River, which flows through the middle of Northfield.\u00a0 On the east side of the river was Newberry\u2019s Victorian Cornet Band<\/a>, from Maryland, which specializes in music from the period 1870 to 1900.\u00a0 On the west side of the river was the 1st Brigade Band<\/a>, from Watertown, Wisconsin, which specializes in music of the Civil War era. The band members play “over the shoulder” instruments, the bells of which face backwards toward the soldiers who were marching behind the band. \u00a0You can see an over the shoulder bugle in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During the Civil War, a \u201cbattle of the bands\u201d generally took place in the evening, when two opposing armies had gone into bivouac, and the bands on either side played back and forth across the lines.\u00a0 Sam Seay, of the 1st<\/sup> Tennessee Infantry, described one especially poignant \u201cbattle of the bands\u201don the eve of the Battle of Stones River<\/a> (the Battle of Murfreesboro) on December 30, 1862:<\/p>\n

Just before \u2018tattoo\u2019 the military bands on each side began their evening music. The still winter night carried their strains to great distance. At every pause on our side, far away could be heard the military bands of the other. Finally one of them struck up \u2018Home Sweet Home.\u2019 As if by common consent, all other airs ceased, and the bands of both armies as far as the ear could reach, joined in the\u00a0refrain. Who knows how many hearts were bold next day by reason of that air?<\/em><\/p>\n

The modern 1st<\/sup> Brigade Band was founded in 1964, one hundred years after the original 1st<\/sup> Wisconsin Brigade Band marched to the sea with Gen. William T. Sherman.\u00a0 During that campaign, the band found itself in a hard-fought \u201cbattle of the bands\u201d with another Union brigade band from Michigan.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how bandmaster E.O. Kimberly described the \u201cbattle\u201d:<\/p>\n

“They were a very fair band: they would play a piece and then we would.\u00a0 After playing 3 or 4 pieces, we then played a new piece we had just learned, a fine thing; after finishing it ,they struck up with the same thing<\/span>, which of course was considered an insult.\u00a0 Our boys then swore they would run them out, determined to play the last piece, and the other band also made the same determination that they would play the last piece and run the d….d Badgers out.\u00a0 Of course on such occasion both bands had been drinking pretty freely and were excited and maddened to no low pitch.\u00a0 We kept on, as soon as they finished a piece we were ready to start in, playing every piece they did if we had it.\u00a0 They sent a man over to see what we had to play and we had done the same.\u00a0 Their colonel was with them and swore that he would hang the first men that gave out.\u00a0 The whole affair was just like a hard contested battle.\u00a0 At one o’clock we were still going at it, as quick as they would stop, we would start right in.\u00a0 We were determined to play until 8 o’clock in the morning if necessary.\u00a0 The Doctor said he would get us some breakfast.\u00a0 Liquors were set out on a table for the boys to drink just when they had a mind to.\u00a0 Both bands kept on until 3 o’clock: it was their turn to play but they failed to come out; we waited patiently.\u00a0 Our spy came back and informed us they had given up.\u00a0 We played ‘Yankee Doodle’ double quick.\u00a0 The boys shouted Victory!\u00a0 We had whipped them and forced a retreat.”<\/em><\/p>\n

In Northfield this weekend, the Newberry Victorian Cornet Band retired from the field after a rousing rendition of \u201cDixie,\u201d\u00a0which you can listen to here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can find a history of the 1st<\/sup> Brigade Band on the modern band\u2019s website<\/a>, and photographs of the original band members in the digital collections of the University of Wisconsin<\/a>.\u00a0 The Library of Congress American Memory collection has an excellent online exhibit of \u201cBand Music from the Civil War Era<\/a>,\u201dincluding audio files of some of the music and downloadable scores<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for a small slideshow (six photos) of the 2010 battle of the bands in Northfield, and here<\/a> for a video of the battle of the bands during the 2006 Vintage Band Festival in Northfield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend, Northfield, Minnesota, has been host to the 2010 Vintage Band Festival.\u00a0 The four-day festival draws brass bands from as far away as Helsinki, Finland.\u00a0 One of the highlights of the weekend was a reenactment of a Civil War \u201cbattle of the bands,\u201d with two bands in historical costume facing off across the Cannon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[167],"class_list":["post-3159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war-1861-1865","tag-education-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3159"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4436,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3159\/revisions\/4436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}