A song that almost ended a War - Lorena

A song that almost ended a War - Lorena. This is another of my Favourite American Civil War Tunes - I play it on Tin Whistle - slow air, and on the fife hornpipe time - but it looses its passion when played on the fife!

During the American Civil War, soldiers on both sides of the conflict thought of their wives and girlfriends back home when they heard the song "Lorena." One Confederate officer even attributed the South's defeat to the song. He reasoned that upon hearing the mournful ballad the soldiers grew so homesick that they lost their effectiveness as a fighting force.

"Lorena" is an antebellum song with Northern origins. Written in 1856 by Rev. Henry D. L. Webster, after a broken engagement to his sweetheart - He wrote a long poem about his fiancée but changed her name to "Lorena," an adaptation of "Lenore" from Edgar Allan Poe's macabre poem, "The Raven." Webster's friend, Joseph P. Webster, wrote the music, and the song was first published in Chicago in 1857. It became a favourite of soldiers of both sides during the American Civil War.

HMA