Battle Cry of Freedom, The

DESCRIPTION: "Oh, we'll rally 'round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again, Shouting the battle cry of freedom... The Union forever, hurrah, boys, hurrah...." Sundry boasts about the might and patriotism of the Union army marching to overcome the rebels
AUTHOR: George F. Root
EARLIEST DATE: 1862 (sheet music published by Root & Cady)
KEYWORDS: Civilwar patriotic
FOUND IN: US Australia
REFERENCES (17 citations):
Root-StoryOfAMusicalLife-GeorgeFRoot, pp. 240-242, "The Battle Cry of Freedom" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Anderson-FolkSongsOfAustralia, p. 34, "The Battle Cry of Freedom" (1 text, 1 tune, thoroughly mixed with "Marching Through Georgia")
Jackson-PopularSongsOfNineteenthCenturyAmerica, pp. 18-21, "The Battle Cry of Freedom" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lawrence-MusicForPatriotsPoliticiansAndPresidents, pp. 362-363, "The Battle-Cry of Freedom" (1 text, 1 tune, a copy of the Root & Cady sheet music)
Silber-SongsOfTheCivilWar, pp. 17-19, "The Battle Cry of Freedom (Rallying Song)"; p. 19, "The Battle Cry of Freedom, II (Battle Song)"; p. 20, "Southern 'Batty Cry of Freedom'" (3 texts, 1 tune, with the second being apparently a new set of words by author Root and the third an anonymous southern parody)
Silber-SoldierSongsAndHomeFrontBalladsOfCivilWar, pp. 18-19, "The Battle Cry of Freedom" (1 text, 1 tune)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #90, p. 7, "Battle Cry of Freedom, or, We'll Rally Round the Flag Boys" (21 references); cf. #1959, p. 131, "Rally Round the Flag Boys" (12 texts, none of them credited to Root; this appears to be a separate song)
Dime-Song-Book #10, p. 18, "The Battle-Cry of Freedom" (1 text)
Darling-NewAmericanSongster, pp. 346-347, "Battle Cry of Freedom" (1 text)
Heart-Songs, pp. 17-18, "The Battle Cry of Freedom (Rallying Song)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hill-PoemsAndSongsOfTheCivilWar, p. 205, "The Battlecry of Freedom" (1 text)
Messerli-ListenToTheMockingbird, pp. 107-109, "The Battle-Cry of Freedom" (1 text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 285, "The Battle Cry Of Freedom" (1 text)
Colonial-Dames-AmericanWarSongs, pp. 78-79, "The Battle Cry of Freedom" (1 text)
Rodeheaver-SociabilitySongs, p. 13, "The Battle-Cry of Freedom" (1 text, 1 tune)
MidwestFolklore, W. L. McAtee, "Some Folklore of Grant County, Indiana, in the Nineties," Volume 1, Number 4 (WInter 1951), p. 259, "(Three Cheers for Mary)" (1 text, with the chorus of "The Battle Cry of Freedom" although the verse "Three cheers for Mary, Three for the Lamb" might go with "Mary Had a Little Lamb" -- or possibly with a Catholic song about the Virgin Mary and Jesus the Lamb of God)
DT, BATTLCRY*
ST MA034 (Full)
Roud #V20863
RECORDINGS:
[Arthur] Harlan & [Frank] Stanley, "Battle Cry of Freedom" (Victor 4099, c. 1904) (CYL: Edison 8805, 1904)
J. W. Myers, "Battle Cry of Freedom" (Victor 3387, c. 1904)
John Terrell, "Battle Cry of Freedom" (Berliner 1854, 1898)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The People's Rally Cry" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
The People's Rally Cry (Greenway-AmericanFolksongsOfProtest, p. 61)
The Rally Cry of Freedom ("Come true loyal hearts") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets p. 131)
Rally Round the Cause Boys (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets p. 131)
Hiram's Menagerie ("Hiram had a little lamb," an anti U. S. Grant campaign song, sung to this tune despite the "little lamb" line) (Lawrence-MusicForPatriotsPoliticiansAndPresidents, p. 455)
Labor, Land, and Freemen ("Yes, we'll rally round the polls, boys, We'll rally once again, Fighting for labor, land and freemen") (by B. M. Lawrence) (Foner, p. 264)
Shouting the Battle-Cry of Labor ("We are marshalled for a conflict, with the enemies of toil") (by A. A. Smith) (Foner, p. 270)
Campaign Song ("The works have all shut down, boys, the wolf is at the door, So we'll vote the people's ticket now and ever") (Foner, p. 279)
Social Freedom ("We're gathered here together to agitate and work And fight for liberty and freedom") (by Arthur Cheesewright) (Foner, p. 304)
Campaign Song ("Ohio's stalwart son, General Garfield, is our choice, Garfield, the valiant, true and loyal") (Garfield and Arthur Campaign Song Book 1880, p. 9)
Rally Round the Flag (Prohibition version) ("We're coming from the factory, the office, shop and store") (Anna Adams Gordon, _Popular Campaign Songs_, National W.C.T.U. Publishing House, 1915, p. 31)
Rally Round the Standard, Boys (by Fanny J. Crosby) (Colonial-Dames-AmericanWarSongs, p. 146)
The Colorado Strike Song ("We will win the fight today, boys... Shouting the battle cry of union") (by Frank Hayes) (Thomas G. Andrews, _Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War_, 2008 (I use the 2010 Harvard University Press paperback), p 235) (Laughlin: Rosemary Laughlin, _The Ludlow Massacre of 1913-14_ (American Workers series), Morgan Reynolds Publishing, 2006, p. 72)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
We'll Rally Round the Flag
Rally Round the Flag
NOTES [396 words]: There were (at least) two Civil War pieces called "The Battle Cry of Freedom," this and one beginning "Hark! the loud bell now spreads the alarm (7 verses and chorus attributed to "A. Anderson, late of 82d Regt" and published in 1863). The George F. Root song is by far the more popular; the catalog in Edwin Wolf 2nd, American Song Sheets, Slip Ballads, and Political Broadsides 1850-1870, Library Company of Philadelphia, 1963, pp. 7-8, lists two prints of the Anderson song and 21 of Root's. On p. 131, Wolf lists twelve more broadsides published under the title "Rally Round the Flag," although this too may be another song. Certainly another such song existed, with the first lines "Rally round the Flag Boys, Give it to the breeze, That's the banner we love...." It had words by James T. Field and music by William B. Bradbury.
That's an ironic combination, given that William B. Bradbury and George F. Root (along with Lowell Mason) had worked together to establish the New York Normal Musical Institute (see Deane L. Root, American Popular Stage Music 1860-1880, 1977 (as a Ph.D. thesis); UMI Research Press, 1981, p. 11).
Root-StoryOfAMusicalLife-GeorgeFRoot, pp. 132-133, tells this story of the origin of the song: "I heard of President Lincoln's second call for troops [either Lincoln's call on May 3, 1861 for 64,700 troops or his July 2, 1862 call for 300,000 volunteers; Mark M. Boatner III, The Civil War Dictionary, 1959 (there are many editions of this very popular work; mine is a Knopf hardcover), p. 858] while reclining on a lounge in my brother's house. Immediately a song started in my mind, words and music together:
'Yes, we'll rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom!'
I thought it out that afternoon, and wrote it the next morning at the store. The ink was hardly dry when the Lumbard brothers -- the great singers of the war -- came in for something to sing at a war meeting that was to be holden immediately in the court-house square just opposite. They went through the new song once, then hastened to the steps of the court-house.... From there the song went into the army, and the testimony in regard to its use in the camp and on the march, and even on the field of battle... made me thankful that if I could not shoulder a musket in defense of my country I could serve her in this way." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: MA034

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