Oh we'll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree

Last updated

"A Yankee Song" (The Charlotte Democrat, Charlotte, N.C., December 23, 1862) A Yankee Song.jpg
"A Yankee Song" (The Charlotte Democrat, Charlotte, N.C., December 23, 1862)

"Oh we'll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree" (and similar) is a variant of the American folk song "John Brown's Body" that was sung by the United States military, Unionist civilians, and freedmen during and after the American Civil War. [1] [2] [3] [4] The phrase and associated imagery became relevant to the post-war legal issues surrounding the potential prosecution of former Confederate politicians and officers; the lyric was sometimes referenced in political cartoons and artworks of the time, and in political debates continuing well into the post-Reconstruction era. [5] [6] [7] [8]

Contents

History

Jeff Davis and the sour apple tree appear in print as early as August 1861. [9] In 1880, a U.S. Army veteran claimed credit for first singing the lyric in spring 1862 in Virginia, having taken inspiration from a prior song about a "sick monkey in a sour apple tree." [10] In 1947 a survivor of American slavery named Perry Vaughn recalled, "I fought in Abe Lincoln's army and played the bass horn in the Army band. I can still remember, like it was yesterday, playing 'We'll Hang Jeff Davis on a Sour Apple Tree.'" [11]

A less bloodthirsty variant was "We'll feed Jeff Davis sour apples 'til he gets the diarhee." [12]

Richard Wright's 1938 novella Big Boy Leaves Home references a white-supremacist variant: "We'll hang ever nigger t a sour apple tree." [13]

Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, died of natural causes in 1889. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Confederate States of America</span> Unrecognized state in North America (1861–1865)

The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or the South, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 5, 1865. It was composed of eleven U.S. states that declared secession; South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. These states warred against the United States during the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jefferson Davis</span> President of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865

Jefferson F. Davis was an American politician who served as the first and only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party before the American Civil War. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Brown's Body</span> United States marching song

"John Brown's Body", originally known as "John Brown's Song", is a United States marching song about the abolitionist John Brown. The song was popular in the Union during the American Civil War. The song arose out of the folk hymn tradition of the American camp meeting movement of the late 18th and early 19th century. According to an 1889 account, the original John Brown lyrics were a collective effort by a group of Union soldiers who were referring both to the famous John Brown and also, humorously, to a Sergeant John Brown of their own battalion. Various other authors have published additional verses or claimed credit for originating the John Brown lyrics and tune.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Anderson (Union officer)</span> American Civil War Union Army officer (1805–1871)

Robert Anderson was a United States Army officer during the American Civil War. He was the Union commander in the first battle of the American Civil War at Fort Sumter in April 1861 when the Confederates bombarded the fort and forced its surrender, starting the war. Anderson was celebrated as a hero in the North and promoted to brigadier general and given command of Union forces in Kentucky. He was removed late in 1861 and reassigned to Rhode Island, before retiring from military service in 1863. In 1865, he returned to Fort Sumter to again raise the American flag that he had lowered during the 1861 surrender.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Border states (American Civil War)</span> Slave states that did not secede from the Union during the American Civil War

In the American Civil War (1861–65), the border states or the Border South were four, later five, slave states in the Upper South that primarily supported the Union. They were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, and after 1863, the new state of West Virginia. To their north they bordered free states of the Union, and all but Delaware bordered slave states of the Confederacy to their south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hail to the Chief</span> Personal anthem of the president of the United States

"Hail to the Chief" is a piece originally announcing arrival by boat at an island in a Scottish loch, but today it is best known as the personal anthem of the President of the United States, adapted by James Sanderson from an original Scottish Gaelic melody.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jefferson C. Davis</span> American general

Jefferson Columbus Davis was a regular officer of the United States Army during the American Civil War, known for the similarity of his name to that of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and for his killing of a superior officer in 1862.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Milton (Florida politician)</span> American politician (1807–1865)

John Milton was governor of Florida through most of the American Civil War. A lawyer who served in the Florida Legislature, he supported the secession of Florida from the Union and became governor in October 1861. In that post, he turned the state into a major supplier of food for the Confederacy. In his final message to the state legislature as the war was ending, he declared that death would be preferable to reunion with the North. When he killed himself, his son Jefferson Davis Milton was a toddler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Wirz</span> Confederate States Army officer (1823–1865)

Henry Wirz was a Swiss-American convicted war criminal who served as a Confederate Army officer during the American Civil War. He was the commandant of Andersonville Prison, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp near Andersonville, Georgia, where nearly 13,000 Union Army prisoners of war died as a result of inhumane conditions. After the war, Wirz was tried and executed for conspiracy and murder relating to his command of the camp; this made the captain the highest-ranking soldier and only officer of the Confederate Army to be sentenced to death for crimes during their service. Since his execution, Wirz has become a controversial figure due to debate about his guilt and reputation, including criticism over his personal responsibility for Andersonville Prison's conditions and the quality of his post-war trial.

In music, a breakdown is a part of a song in which various instruments have solo parts (breaks). This may take the form of all instruments playing the verse together, and then several or all instruments individually repeating the verse as solo parts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Barnwell Rhett</span> American politician (1800–1876)

Robert Barnwell Rhett was an American politician who served as a deputy from South Carolina to the Provisional Confederate States Congress from 1861 to 1862, a member of the US House of Representatives from South Carolina from 1837 to 1849, and US Senator from South Carolina from 1850 to 1852. As a staunch supporter of slavery and an early advocate of secession, he was a "Fire-Eater", nicknamed the "father of secession".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hampton Roads Conference</span> Peace conference held between the United States and the Confederate States on February 3, 1865

The Hampton Roads Conference was a peace conference held between the United States and representatives of the unrecognized breakaway Confederate States on February 3, 1865, aboard the steamboat River Queen in Hampton Roads, Virginia, to discuss terms to end the American Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward, representing the Union, met with three commissioners from the Confederacy: Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, and Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Bruce Mumford</span> Confederate-American executed for treason 1862

William Bruce Mumford was a North Carolina native and resident of New Orleans, who tore down the U.S. flag raised over Confederate New Orleans after the city was captured by Union troops during the American Civil War. In response, Union Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, the commander of the Union ground forces, had Mumford court-martialed and executed for treason.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Chesnut Jr.</span> American politician

James Chesnut Jr. was an American lawyer and politician, and a Confederate functionary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Cornelius Burnett</span> American politician

Henry Cornelius Burnett was an American politician who served as a Confederate States senator from Kentucky from 1862 to 1865. From 1855 to 1861, Burnett served four terms in the United States House of Representatives. A lawyer by profession, Burnett had held only one public office—circuit court clerk—before being elected to Congress. He represented Kentucky's 1st congressional district immediately prior to the Civil War. This district contained the entire Jackson Purchase region of the state, which was more sympathetic to the Confederate cause than any other area of Kentucky. Burnett promised the voters of his district that he would have President Abraham Lincoln arraigned for treason. Unionist newspaper editor George D. Prentice described Burnett as "a big, burly, loud-mouthed fellow who is forever raising points of order and objections, to embarrass the Republicans in the House".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Confederate States Secretary of War</span> Member of the Confederate States Presidents Cabinet

The Confederate States secretary of war was a member of President Jefferson Davis's cabinet during the American Civil War. The Secretary of War was head of the Confederate States Department of War. The position ended in May 1865 when the Confederacy collapsed during John C. Breckinridge's tenure of the office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Waud</span> English architect and illustrator (1832–1878)

William Waud (wɔ:d) was an English-born architect and illustrator, notable for the sketches he made as an artist correspondent during the American Civil War.

The Jeff. Davis Legion was a cavalry regiment of the Confederate States Army. Made up of companies from Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia; it fought primarily in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. In 1865, it was reassigned to the Army of Tennessee, surrendering at Greensboro, N.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treason must be made odious</span> Stock phrase of U.S. politician Andrew Johnson (1808–1875)

"Treason must be made odious" was the most common shorthand rendering of a stump speech made by Tennessean Andrew Johnson when he was military governor and a U.S. vice-presidential candidate in 1864. The phrase became relevant to the post-American Civil War legal issues surrounding the potential prosecution of former Confederate politicians and officers, as well as questions of enfranchisement of freedmen versus the re-enfranchisement of ex-Confederates. It has been described as "one of the best-remembered sayings of one of the least-remembered of our Presidents."

References

  1. Finseth, Ian Frederick (2006). The American Civil War: An Anthology of Essential Writings. Taylor & Francis. p. 336. ISBN   978-0-415-97744-9.
  2. Kobbé, Gustav (1906). Famous American Songs. T.Y. Crowell. p. 158.
  3. French, Justus Clement; Cary, Edward (1865). The Trip of the Steamer Oceanus to Fort Sumter and Charleston, S. C.: Comprising the ... Programme of Exercises at the Re-raising of the Flag Over the Ruins of Fort Sumter, April 14th, 1865. "The Union" Steam Printing House. pp. 90–91.
  4. Kent, Charles Nelson (1898). History of the Seventeenth Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry. 1862-1863. By order of the Seventeenth New Hampshire veteran association.
  5. "Jeff. D hung on a "sour apple tree" or treason made odious". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. January 1867. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  6. "Hang him on the sour apple tree". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  7. "John Brown exhibiting his hangman". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. January 1865. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  8. "A Memory of the Past". Ellsworth Reporter. June 10, 1886. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  9. "Massachusetts has another new regiment..." Fayetteville Semi-Weekly Observer. August 22, 1861. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  10. "Jeff Davis on a Sour Apple Tree: How the Famous Song Had Its Origin in the Army". Wood County Reporter. August 6, 1885. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  11. "Madison's 3 Surviving Ex-Slaves Total 288 Years". The Capital Times. August 3, 1947. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-08-10. & "Bondage Years Still Vivid to Ex-Slaves Here". The Capital Times. August 3, 1947. p. 10. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  12. Coates, Ta-Nehisi (September 8, 2011). "The Glory of the Coming of the Lord". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  13. Carpio, Glenda (March 21, 2019). The Cambridge Companion to Richard Wright. Cambridge University Press. p. 77. ISBN   978-1-108-47517-4.
  14. "U.S. Senate: Jefferson Davis: A Featured Biography". www.senate.gov. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  15. "OUR NEXT VICE-PRESIDENT. Speech of Gov. Johnson at Nashville". NY Times. June 16, 1864.
  16. Maslowski, Peter (1978). Treason Must be Made Odious: Military Occupation and Wartime Reconstruction in Nashville, Tennessee, 1862-65. KTO Press. ISBN   978-0-527-62185-8.

Further reading