Civil War Music of the Western Border

Our focus on tradtional music from our own Missouri/Ozark region led us to study the events of the Civil War in our own area. With our own local historian and songwriter Bob Dyer we eventually produced the only compilation of music from the Civil War in the West. We recorded two volumes of music which include booklets of extensive notes about the songs as well as the lyrics, many of which follow. The war in the Trans-Mississippi West is fascinating and peculiar in Civil War scholarship and a subject often too remote and too difficult for most writers to tackle. The primary sources and certainly the earliest secondary sources suffer from very biased perspectives, causing many a historian and writer to fail in what should be an objective study of what can be called an American Bosnia. Pictured is a photo of a wax reconstruction of the head of William Clarke Quantrill, the most infamous of the guerrilla leaders in the border war. In addition to giving Frank and Jesse James some on-the-job training for their later outlaw careers, Quantrill played the largest role in the bloodiest and most widespread guerrilla warfare during the Civil War. This theater of war begins years before the firing on Fort Sumter in 1861 and, with the career of James/Younger gang, extends for many years after peace is signed at Appomatox. Quantrill's reconstructed wax head, stored in a refrigerator in the historical museum of his hometown of Dover, Ohio, symbolizes a personal story that is fascinating even after his death. Cathy is editor of the "No Quarterly," the newsletter for the William Clarke Quantrill Society, of group of people interested in studying this perplexing history.

On our site:

Many of the songs we've recorded deal with the Civil War, esp. in & around Missouri. We've posted the liner notes from our albums on this site and this section will guide you to the notes on the song you're interested in.

• Songs with words
  • Songs actually from the Civil War era (or shortly after)
    • Abolitionists' Hymn
    • Atchison's Buchaneers
    • Battle of Pea Ridge
    • Blackfoot Rangers
    • Call of Quantrill
    • Call to Kansas
    • Daniel Martin
    • The Death of Lyon
    • Gone to Kansas
    • Guerilla Man
    • Hard Times
    • Honest Pat Murphy
    • I Goes to Fight Mit Sigel
    • Invasion of Camp Jackson by the Hessians
    • Jesse James
    • Kansas Emigrant Song
    • Kelly's Irish Brigade
    • Knot of Blue and Gray.
    • Missouri, Bright Land of the West
    • Prairie Grove
    • Quantrill
    • Quantrill Side
    • Rebel in the Woods
    • War in Missouri in '61
    • Waiting for the Federals
  • Songs inspired by the Civil War era
    • Anderson's Warning
    • Kate's Song
    • Jesse James
    • Johnny Whistletrigger
    • The Last Great Rebel Raid
    • The Swamp Fox
• Poem
  • Marais des Cygne
• Prose
  • Gen. Price's Proclamation
  • The Nature of the Guerilla
• Instrumentals
  • Tunes from the Civil War era
    • Bonaparte's March
    • General Sigel's Grand March
    • Lyon's Funeral March
    • Marching Quadrille
    • Marmaduke's Hornpipe
    • Muddy Road to Moberly
    • Nolan the Soldier
    • Quindaro Hornpipe
    • Shelby's Mule
    • Yellow Rose of Texas
  • Tunes inspired by the Civil War era
    • Wakefield
• Bibliographies
  • for our Rebel in the Woods album
  • for Johnny Whistletrigger

Elsewhere on the web

• Civil War in Missouri
  • general subjects
    • Missouri Civil War Museum
    • A comprehensive list of web info about the Civil War in Missouri
  • specific subjects
    • The Civil War in Southeastern Missouri
    • Incident at Glassgow, Mo.
• Civil War in Kansas
  • A collection of original documents pertaining to Bleeding Kansas
• Civil War in Arkansas
  • Civil War in Arkansas
• Civil War music
  • Civil War music and poetry
  • Poetry & Music of the War Between the States
  • Corinth page
  • Civil War Music Store
  • Harry Bolick
• Civil War in general
  • List of Civil War Links (incl. music links)
  • a nice set of Civil War links
  • Camp Pope Bookshop
  • University of Georgia collection: Civil War maps
  • Robert E. Lee

To suggest additional links, write webmaster@bartonpara.com