Anyone who explores Civil War\u2013era history should pay close attention to how people at the time understood and used key words. \u201cFreedom\u201d ranks among the most important of such words. Americans of the 21st century almost always address questions relating to freedom within a context of slavery and emancipation. This approach often yields insights regarding mid\u201319th century people, across racial lines, who found themselves challenged by the war\u2019s life-changing events. Yet such assumptions about how the White population in the free states used \u201cfreedom\u201d also can lead us astray. For a broad spectrum of the loyal citizenry of the United States, including almost all Democrats, the word could have conjured images not of ending slavery but of guaranteeing and extending their own liberty and freedom in a nation where, politically and economically, the cards were not stacked irrevocably against common people.<\/p>\n
George F. Root\u2019s song The Battle-Cry of Freedom<\/em> offers an opportunity to explore this phenomenon. Among the most popular compositions for loyal soldiers and civilians, its sheet music sold more than 500,000 copies in the 19th century. Root\u2019s lyrics not only shed light on what mattered to those who sang and listened to them, but they also demonstrate the importance of ascribing contemporary meanings to language deployed by the Civil War generation. \u201cFreedom\u201d is the key word in the song\u2019s title. A reasonable conclusion might be that Root, writing in the summer of 1862, authored a call for White men to enlist and end the practice of human bondage by force of arms. After all, Congress already had outlawed slavery in the District of Columbia and the Federal territories (on April 16 and June 19, 1862, respectively), and discussion of more general emancipation grew increasingly heated inside and outside Congress.<\/p>\n However plausible, such an interpretation fails to account for the origins of the song and its great appeal in the United States. \u201cI heard of President Lincoln\u2019s second call for troops one afternoon while reclining on a lounge in my brother\u2019s house,\u201d Root recalled in his memoirs. \u201cImmediately I started a song in my mind,\u201d he continued, \u201cwords and music together: \u2018Yes, we\u2019ll rally round the flag, boys, we\u2019ll rally once again, \/ Shouting the battle-cry of freedom!\u2019\u201d Root thought about the piece through the rest of the day and finished it the following morning. \u201cFrom there the song went into the army,\u201d he remembered with obvious pride, \u201cand the testimony in regard to its use in the camp and on the march, and even on the field of battle, from soldiers and officers, up to generals, and even to the good President himself, made me thankful that if I could not shoulder a musket in defense of my country I could serve her in this way.\u201d<\/p>\n Emancipation almost certainly did not preoccupy Root as he composed what he termed a \u201crallying song.\u201d Lincoln\u2019s call for the governors of loyal states to supply 300,000 3-year volunteers, dated July 1, 1862, and released to the press the next day, sought to boost volunteering across the United States. National conscription<\/a> lay many months in the future, as did large-scale recruitment of African Americans, so anything that might help place more White men in uniform during the summer of 1862 would assist the Lincoln administration and the war effort.<\/p>\n For the song\u2019s targeted audience, \u201cUnion\u201d provided the hook, with preservation of existing American freedom as one of the obvious benefits of vanquishing the Rebels. The chorus conveyed the principal message: \u201cThe Union forever, Hurrah, boys, Hurrah! \/ Down with the traitor, Up with the star; \/ While we rally round the flag, boys, \/ Rally once again, Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom.\u201d Echoing Daniel Webster\u2019s famous call for \u201cLiberty and Union, now and forever,\u201d the chorus supported the idea of a perpetual Union so dear to Lincoln and countless others.<\/p>\n The second verse tied prospective volunteers to White men who had enlisted earlier and suffered casualties that left military units shorthanded: \u201cWe are springing to the call \/ Of our brothers gone before, \/ Shouting the battle cry of Freedom; \/ And we\u2019ll fill our vacant ranks \/ With a million free men more, \/ Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n The third verse invited all classes of men to step forward with a promise of rights within the Union: \u201cWe will welcome to our numbers \/ The loyal, true, and brave, \/ Shouting the battle cry of Freedom, \/ And although he may be poor, \/ Not a man shall be a slave, \/ Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.\u201d The last verse spoke to a national effort uniting geographical sections: \u201cSo we\u2019re springing to the call \/ From the East and from the West, \/ Shouting the battle cry of Freedom, \/ And we\u2019ll hurl the rebel crew \/ From the land we love the best, \/ Shouting the battle cry of freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n Root\u2019s lyrics brilliantly engaged the pool of military-age White men in the loyal states\u2014\u201cfree men\u201d who, by taking up arms, would guarantee continued \u201cfreedom\u201d and prevent their domination by southern slaveholders. These words appealed on the basis of a free labor vision of the American nation with a Constitution and representative form of government designed, as Abraham Lincoln put it, \u201cto clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all\u2014to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.\u201d Many in the North believed that slaveholding oligarchs denied such a path, and thus real freedom, to non-slaveholding White people in the South, and that the Slave Power\u2019s inordinate influence in the antebellum federal government had presented a continuing obstacle to greater expansion of political and economic opportunity.<\/p>\n Root translated Webster\u2019s soaring rhetoric into a paean to Union with an infectious melody and well-crafted lyrics that spread through army camps and patriotic gatherings on the civilian front. As the war progressed, emancipation joined restoring the Union as a stated national goal, and Black men entered the army in significant numbers. Those striking changes meant that Root\u2019s memorable song could summon thoughts of both preserving freedom long enjoyed by White Americans and expanding freedom to millions of African Americans who had suffered under the tyranny of slavery.<\/p>\n This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of <\/em>Civil War Times<\/a> magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"George](\"https:\/\/www.historynet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/george-root-cwt-spring-2024-819x1024.jpg\")
\n (Courtesy of Northern Illinois University )<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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