Monitor and the Merrimac, The

DESCRIPTION: "Ye tars of Columbia come listen to my song ..." On March 8 Merrimac sinks Cumberland and Congress at Newport News. Then Monitor disables Merrimac. "The Yankees gained the day"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1870 (source: Frank-JollySailorsBold)
KEYWORDS: battle Civilwar contest violence war sea ship wreck patriotic sailor
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Mar 8, 1862 - U.S. frigates Congress and Cumberland sunk by the CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack). The Minnesota runs aground; had not the Monitor arrived the next day, the Merrimac would have sunk that ship also.
May 31-Jun 1, 1862: Battle of Fair Oaks/Seven Pines
June 25-July 1, 1862 - Seven Days' Battle - In a series of battles, Lee induced McClellan to abandon the attack on Richmond
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Frank-JollySailorsBold 57, "The Monitor and the Merrimac" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #31329
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Cumberland Crew" [Laws A18] (subject: the Battle of Hampton Roads) and references there
NOTES [299 words]: Frank has the chorus "In the old Virginia Lowlands, Lowlands, Lowlands, In the old Virginia Lowlands low." The tune he uses is "In the Louisiana Lowlands." A Civil War songbook includes "The Seven Days' Fight" with "Louisiana Lowlands" as its tune and the same chorus as Frank's "The Monitor and the Merrimac":
'Way down in Old Virginia, not many months ago,
McClellan made a movement -- he made it very slow;
The rebels soon found it out, and pitched into our rear;
They got the very d(evi)l, for they found old Kearney there!
Chorus: In the old Virginia Lowlands, Lowlands, Lowlands,
In the old Virginia Lowlands low!
source: Arkansas Traveller's Song Book (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1864 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")), pp. 14-16.
See "Louisiana Lowlands" indexed here. Its chorus is "In de Louisiana lowlands, lowlands, low, In de Louisiana lowlands low."
[For background on the Monitor/Merrimack battle see the Notes to "The Cumberland Crew" [Laws A18].] - BS
Regarding "The Seven Days' Fight": General Phil Kearney was widely regarded as the best soldier in the Army of the Potomac, but at the time of the peninsular campaign, he was a mere division commander. Despite the song title, I would suggest the reference might not be to the Seven Days's Battles but to the earlier Battle of Fair Oaks/Seven Pines, where Joseph E. Johnston attacked the Army of the Potomac at a time when different parts of the army were on both sides of a river. Kearney's division was instrumental in turning them back. And because it was an earlier battle, the memory of the Monitor/Merrimac fight would be fresher; by the time of the Seven Days, the Virginia had been blown up because every port that she could use had been captured, so there would be less reason for borrowing between songs. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.0
File: FJSB057

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography