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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/1jjr6jo:
“
James Edward Greybill, invited to address the Alexander Hamilton Post of the Grand Army of the Republic utilized the opportunity to prepare a study of Hamilton’s military career […] Among the topics touched on by Greybill was Hamilton's song. In the course of his research he wrote to Schuyler Hamilton, another grandson, and received a long letter in reply, of which the following paragraphs contain the pertinent material:
“I have always been of the opinion, from what I have heard from my father and uncles, that the song sung by my grandfather at the dinner of the Cincinnati, where Colonel Burr was present, was General Wolff’s famous camp song, which begins with the words, “How stands the glass around?” I enclose you a copy of it. Colonel Burr was seated on the left of General Hamilton at this dinner. My informants told me, and they had it from their fathers, who were present, it was the song, “How stands the glass around” - as well it might, which aroused Burr’s attention. Mr. Edmund Lincoln Bayliss, a grandson of General Lincoln, of revolutionary fame, told me the song sung on that occasion was Wolff’s song, and scouted the idea of General Hamilton singing, before the Cincinnati, “The Drum,” which, he said, was a common tavern ballad. “The Drum,” to which I suppose you refer, was a favorite camp song in both the British and Continental armies. It appears as part of “The Jolly Beggars,” in Robert Burns’ works […] It is like many of the camp songs of that day — un-nice, and, with a duel before him in a few days, it is altogether out of keeping with my grandfather’s character for him to have sung it, Colonel Burr being by his side.”
This Schuyler Hamilton letter, dated January 4, 1897, obviously raises some problems, but it at least specifically identifies two genuine “old military songs” which Hamilton could have sung on July 4, 1804.
Schuyler Hamilton’s reasons for rejecting the Robert Burns “Drum" are not in themselves very persuasive. Clearly any song that was deemed “un-nice” by him and such of his friends as Mr. Bayliss — “a common tavern ballad” — was not an appropriate swan-song for his illustrious ancestor. Thus Schuyler Hamilton rejects the Burns ballad as “altogether out of keeping with my grandfather’s character.” There is, however, stronger evidence against Burns’s “Drum” than he seems to have been aware of. “The Jolly Beggars" was indeed written as early as 1793, but like so many of Burns’s poems it circulated only in manuscript among his friends for a long time before it was published posthumously in Glasgow in 1799. Schuyler Hamilton was evidently mistaken, then, in thinking that the Burns verses were “a favorite camp song in both the British and Continental armies” during the American Revolution. It was not impossible, of course, for Hamilton or some other member of the Cincinnati in 1804 to have learned and performed the Burns ditty, but if it was sung at the July 4, 1804, meeting, it would have had to be offered as a brand new hit, rather than as an old familiar song dating back to the days in which the group were comrades-in-arms. And this sort of solo, it must be confessed, does seem out of character both for Hamilton in particular and in general for convivial singers at a veterans’ gathering […].
The most likely candidate, then, as the song sung by Hamilton is the so-called “General Wolfe’s Song” — the song which Wolfe was supposed to have written the night before his glorious death on the Plains of Abraham.
”
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What Was Hamilton’s “Favorite Song”? The William and Mary Quarterly - Vol. 12, No. 2, Alexander Hamilton: 1755-1804 (Apr., 1955). part three.
and here are the lyrics to “General Wolfe’s Song” / “How stands the glass around?”
(via angelica-hamilton)
I have a recording of this song! I had no idea it was associated with General Wolfe! I know the song well and often sing it to my niece. My dad had a record with it sung in four-part harmony by a long-defunct British folk group, and it’s out of print, but he’d made a tape before loaning out his copy which of course disappeared. … Anyway. I have a recording of this song. Somewhere.
… Maybe I’m more interested in this Hamilton craze than i’ve let on until now.
“
James Edward Greybill, invited to address the Alexander Hamilton Post of the Grand Army of the Republic utilized the opportunity to prepare a study of Hamilton’s military career […] Among the topics touched on by Greybill was Hamilton's song. In the course of his research he wrote to Schuyler Hamilton, another grandson, and received a long letter in reply, of which the following paragraphs contain the pertinent material:
“I have always been of the opinion, from what I have heard from my father and uncles, that the song sung by my grandfather at the dinner of the Cincinnati, where Colonel Burr was present, was General Wolff’s famous camp song, which begins with the words, “How stands the glass around?” I enclose you a copy of it. Colonel Burr was seated on the left of General Hamilton at this dinner. My informants told me, and they had it from their fathers, who were present, it was the song, “How stands the glass around” - as well it might, which aroused Burr’s attention. Mr. Edmund Lincoln Bayliss, a grandson of General Lincoln, of revolutionary fame, told me the song sung on that occasion was Wolff’s song, and scouted the idea of General Hamilton singing, before the Cincinnati, “The Drum,” which, he said, was a common tavern ballad. “The Drum,” to which I suppose you refer, was a favorite camp song in both the British and Continental armies. It appears as part of “The Jolly Beggars,” in Robert Burns’ works […] It is like many of the camp songs of that day — un-nice, and, with a duel before him in a few days, it is altogether out of keeping with my grandfather’s character for him to have sung it, Colonel Burr being by his side.”
This Schuyler Hamilton letter, dated January 4, 1897, obviously raises some problems, but it at least specifically identifies two genuine “old military songs” which Hamilton could have sung on July 4, 1804.
Schuyler Hamilton’s reasons for rejecting the Robert Burns “Drum" are not in themselves very persuasive. Clearly any song that was deemed “un-nice” by him and such of his friends as Mr. Bayliss — “a common tavern ballad” — was not an appropriate swan-song for his illustrious ancestor. Thus Schuyler Hamilton rejects the Burns ballad as “altogether out of keeping with my grandfather’s character.” There is, however, stronger evidence against Burns’s “Drum” than he seems to have been aware of. “The Jolly Beggars" was indeed written as early as 1793, but like so many of Burns’s poems it circulated only in manuscript among his friends for a long time before it was published posthumously in Glasgow in 1799. Schuyler Hamilton was evidently mistaken, then, in thinking that the Burns verses were “a favorite camp song in both the British and Continental armies” during the American Revolution. It was not impossible, of course, for Hamilton or some other member of the Cincinnati in 1804 to have learned and performed the Burns ditty, but if it was sung at the July 4, 1804, meeting, it would have had to be offered as a brand new hit, rather than as an old familiar song dating back to the days in which the group were comrades-in-arms. And this sort of solo, it must be confessed, does seem out of character both for Hamilton in particular and in general for convivial singers at a veterans’ gathering […].
The most likely candidate, then, as the song sung by Hamilton is the so-called “General Wolfe’s Song” — the song which Wolfe was supposed to have written the night before his glorious death on the Plains of Abraham.
”
-
What Was Hamilton’s “Favorite Song”? The William and Mary Quarterly - Vol. 12, No. 2, Alexander Hamilton: 1755-1804 (Apr., 1955). part three.
and here are the lyrics to “General Wolfe’s Song” / “How stands the glass around?”
(via angelica-hamilton)
I have a recording of this song! I had no idea it was associated with General Wolfe! I know the song well and often sing it to my niece. My dad had a record with it sung in four-part harmony by a long-defunct British folk group, and it’s out of print, but he’d made a tape before loaning out his copy which of course disappeared. … Anyway. I have a recording of this song. Somewhere.
… Maybe I’m more interested in this Hamilton craze than i’ve let on until now.
