Marching Song of The First Arkansas

Marching Song Of The First Arkansas

"Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment" is one of the few Civil War-era songs inspired by the lyrical structure of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the tune of "John Brown's Body" that is still performed and recorded today. The "Marching Song" has been described as "a powerful early statement of black pride, militancy, and desire for full equality, revealing the aspirations of black soldiers for Reconstruction as well as anticipating the spirit of the civil rights movement of the 1960s." The song's lyrics are attributed to the regiment's white officer, Captain Lindley Miller. An almost identical song, “The Valiant Soldiers,” is attributed to Sojourner Truth in post-Civil War editions of her Narrative. Recent scholarship supports Miller as the original author, or at least compiler, of the “Marching Song.”

Read more about Marching Song Of The First Arkansas:  History, Score, Lyrics, Interpretation, Recordings, Sojourner Truth's Version

Famous quotes containing the words marching, song and/or arkansas:

    The Saints come,
    as human as a mouth,
    with a bag of God in their backs,
    like a hunchback,
    they come,
    they come marching in.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    but you are not deaf,
    you pick out
    your own song from the uproar
    line by line,
    and at last throw back
    your head and sing it.
    Denise Levertov (b. 1923)

    The man who would change the name of Arkansas is the original, iron-jawed, brass-mouthed, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of the Ozarks! He is the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam’d by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the smallpox on his mother’s side!
    —Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)