While “ Dixie ” ( you sleep together , “ Oh , I wish I was in the land of cotton / Old times there are not forgotten … ” ) might seem as inseparable from the South as collard greens and barbeque , the strain was really written in New York by an Ohio aborigine .
In 1859 , Daniel Decatur Emmett was working as a composer for Bryant ’s Minstrels , a tour blackface minstrel show . Over his life-time , Emmett recount the history of the song ’s creation with wildly varying details ( sometimes , he exact to have written the strain in just a few instant , sometimes it was a single showery afternoon and still other times the musical composition take up to a calendar week ) , but a few things are certain . The loss leader of the show wanted a new song to perform before the closing number of their next carrying into action , so Emmett holed up in his hotel elbow room and indite “ Dixie . ” It was performed for the first time on April 4 , 1859 , and was such a hit with audiences in its early performances that the group bumped it back in the program and made it the grand finale .
For some reason , there was a delay in register the right of first publication for the birdsong , and knockoff version began to pop up among different minstrel bit . Touring groups spread the different pas seul around , and it apace became a favorite across the country . At another point in American chronicle , “ Dixie ” might have last the elbow room of many other strike songs and languish away over a few month . The twelvemonth after it debut , though , southern states began to declare their withdrawal from the United States , and as the birdcall spread through the South , it fell on the pinna of a masses and a new country in pauperism of an hymn .
“ Dixie ” seemed a natural fit as a soundtrack for withdrawal . It paint a quaint picture of the South and woodlet sprightliness , and came complete with a tricky slogan of defiance and patriotism : “ In Dixie Land I ’ll take my pedestal / To populate and break in Dixie . ” The Southern secessionists shortly made the call their own , despite its Yankee origins , and played it in between speech and right to vote when delegates converge to vote for withdrawal in Charleston , South Carolina .
Early the undermentioned year , Hermann Arnold , a Montgomery , Alabama bandleader , was tasked with order the music for Jefferson Davis ’ inaugural as the President of the United States of the Confederate States of America . Arnold had no idea what to do . He wanted something “ loyal sounding , ” but almost every song he could dig up had something to do with , or remind him of , the North or the Union . His married woman came to his deliverance and suggested “ Dixie . ” The band do it as a military quickstep at the inauguration , and its status as the unofficial anthem of the Confederacy was cemented ( though a interior hymn was never officially chosen , Davis later told Arnold that his arranging of “ Dixie ” would make a fine choice ) .
To be just , not every Southerner was so capture with the call . When asked if " Dixie " was on the way to becoming the South ’s “ home air ” , sezession militant Edmund Ruffin could only sigh , " I am afraid so . ” After the Civil War , the bandleader for the thirtieth Virginia Infantry admitted that he never recreate “ Dixie ” unless he was forced to .
In reply to its perceive deficiencies — like the exaggerated “ hard worker speak ” pronunciations of some language , jokey pure tone and Northern birthplace — some Southern creative type tried to improve the birdcall or mainsheet its degree of origin and make it into a more hefty Confederate song . New language about the warfare were drafted , new ( Southern ) root were formulate and hidden meaning ( It ’s an allegory about withdrawal , theRichmond Dispatchclaimed ) were “ unveil . ”
None of this sat very well with Emmett , a unswerving Union supporter . “ If I ’d make love to what use they were going to put my vocal , ” he reportedly say , “ I ’ll be maledict if I ’d have write it . ” He eventually came around on the song and learned to apprise the South ’s embrace of his work . After the war , he hold out on farewell tour and blab the song across the region .
While “ Dixie ” is still synonymous with the South , it was eventually reclaimed by the North in some judgement . After he heard of the Confederates ’ surrender at Appomattox , President Abraham Lincoln asked the White House band to play the song . “ I have always think ‘ Dixie ’ one of the good tunes I ever heard , ” he read . “ Our adversaries over the way attempted to reserve it , but we have fairly entrance it . ”
