!
But we'll all hang togedder,
O, hang, boys, hang!"

My presence apparently checked the performance of another verse,
beginning, "De buckra 'list for money," apparently in reference to the
controversy about the pay-question, then just beginning, and to the
more mercenary aims they attributed to the white soldiers. But "Hangman
Johnny" remained always a myth as inscrutable as "Becky Lawton."

As they learned all their songs by ear, they often strayed into wholly
new versions, which sometimes became popular, and entirely banished the
others. This was amusingly the case, for instance, with one phrase in
the popular camp-song of "Marching Along," which was entirely new to
them until our quartermaster taught it to them, at my request. The
words, "Gird on the armor," were to them a stumbling-block, and no
wonder, until some ingenious ear substituted, "Guide on de army," which
was at once accepted, and became universal.

"We'll guide on de army, and be marching along"

is now the established version on the Sea Islands.

These quaint religious songs were to the men more than a source of
relaxation; they were a stimulus to courage and a tie to heaven. I never
overheard in camp a profane or vulgar song. With the trifling exceptions
given, all had a religious motive, while the most secular melody could
not have been more exciting. A few youths from Savannah, who were
comparatively men of the world, had learned some of the "Ethiopian
Minstrel" ditties, imported from the North. These took no hold upon the
mass; and, on the other hand, they sang reluctantly, even on Sunday, the
long and short metres of the hymn-books, always gladly yielding to the
more potent excitement of their own "spirituals." By these they
could sing themselves, as had their fathers before them, out of the
contemplation of their own low estate, into the sublime scenery of the
Apocalypse. I remember that this minor-keyed pathos used to seem to me
almost too sad to dwell upon, while slavery seemed destined to last
for generations; but now that their patience has had its perfect work,
history cannot afford to lose this portion of its record. There is no
parallel instance of an oppressed race thus sustained by the religious
sentiment alone. These songs are but the vocal expression of the
simplicity of their faith and the sublimity of their long resignation.

Chapter 10 Life at Camp Shaw

The Edisto expedition cost me the health and strength o