Walter Kittredge (October 8, 1834 – July 8, 1905), was a famous musician during the American Civil War.
Born in Merrimack, New Hampshire, the tenth of eleven children, Kittredge was a talented self-taught musician who played the seraphine, the melodeon (types of reed-like organs), and the violin. Kittredge toured solo and with the Hutchinson Family, a musical troupe. Over his career he wrote over 500 songs, many of them dealing with themes of the American Civil War. His most famous song, Tenting on the Old Camp Ground, was sung by both sides of the war and is known throughout the world.
Kittredge was also a noted supporter of Abolitionism and the Temperance movement.
He married Annie E. Fairfield in 1861, and was drafted into the American Civil War in 1862 (at which time, shortly before a battle, he wrote Tenting on the Old Camp Ground.) In 1905, he died in his birthplace.
Other songs written by him include:
- No Night
- Golden Streets
- Scatter the Flowers Over the Blue and Gray
- Sing the Old War Songs Again
Famous quotes containing the word walter:
“Right now he’s suffering the cruelest tortures the Germans can devise. But he won’t talk—not as long as he can stand that punishment. And no human body can stand it too long—not even this wonderful, tough guy from Minnesota.”
—John Monks, Jr., U.S. screenwriter, Sy Bartlett, and Henry Hathaway. Gibson (Frank Lattimore? Walter Abel? Melville Cooper?)