Bonnie Blue Flag, The

DESCRIPTION: "We are a band of brothers, and native to the soil, Fighting for the property we gained by honest toil... Hurrah for the bonny blue flag that bears the single star." The states which joined the Confederacy are chronicled and praised
AUTHOR: Words: Harry McCarthy
EARLIEST DATE: 1861 (sheet music published by A. E. Blackmar & Bro. of New Orleans)
KEYWORDS: Civilwar patriotic
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Belden, pp. 357-359, "The Bonnie Blue Flag" (1 text)
Randolph 214, "The Bonnie Blue Flag" (1 text, 1 tune)
BrownIII 379, "The Bonnie Blue Flag" (1 text plus mention of 1 more probably from the same informant)
RJackson-19CPop, pp. 34-38, "The Bonnie Blue Flag" (1 text, 1 tune)
Scott-BoA, p. 220, "The Bonny Blue Flag (Southern)" (1 partial text, tune referenced)
Silber-CivWar, pp. 52-53, "The Bonnie Blue Flag" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hill-CivWar, p. 210, "The Bonnie Blue Flag" (1 text)
Krythe 8, pp. 133-141, "The Bonnie Blue Flag" (1 text, 1 tune)
Darling-NAS, pp. 349-350, "The Bonnie Blue Flag" (1 text)
DT, BONBLUE*
ST R214 (Full)
Roud #4769
RECORDINGS:
Mary C. Mann, "Bonnie Blue Flag" (AFS A-488, 1926)
Old South Quartette, "The Bonnie Blue Flag" (Cyl.: Edison Amberol 389, 2175, 1909)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Irish Jaunting Car" (tune& meter)
cf. "The Homespun Dress" (tune & meter)
cf. "The Northern Bonnie Blue Flag" (tune & meter)
cf. "The Southern Girl's Reply (True to the Gray)" (tune & meter)
cf. "Counties of Arkansas" (tune & meter)
SAME TUNE:
The Southern Girl's Reply (True to the Gray) (File: Wa156)
The Homespun Dress (File: R215)
The Northern Bonnie Blue Flag (File: SBoA218)
The Counties of Arkansas (File: R876)
Gathering Song (by Annie Chambers Ketchum) (War Songs and Poems of the Southern Confederacy, pp. 329-330)
NOTES: This song, written by an immigrant Irishman very early in the Civil War (Belden has a note that Fitz-Grald credits the words to Annie Chambers Ketchum, with Harry McCarthy supplying the tune, but almost all sources credit the song to McCarthy), refers to the first Confederate flag, later succeeded by the "Stars and Bars."
The order the states are mentioned is roughly the order in which they left the Union. South Carolina was first, obviously, followed by the various states of the Deep South (Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida; Louisiana and Texas took slightly longer because of their remote location). It was not until after the attack on Fort Sumter that the border states of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and (last of all) North Carolina seceded.
Jefferson Davis was, of course, the first and only President of the Confederacy, and Alexander Stephens its Vice President.
Krythe's notes on this song contain several errors. The captain of the Alabama was not "Admiral Symmes" but Captain (later Admiral) Raphael Semmes, and General Wickham's first name was not William but Williams (with an s).
Harry McCarthy was only 27 when he wrote this song, but managed to avoid Confederate service as a British citizen. What's more, he fled to the North once the outlook for the Confederacy turned bad enough. He never wrote anything else of note, either.
Interestingly, it appears that no copies of the original printing survive. See the notes in Harry Dichter and Elliott Shapiro, Early American Sheet Music: Its Lure and Its Lore, 1768-1889, R. R. Bowker, 1941, p. 119. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.6
File: R214

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