In Mourning Becomes Electra O’Neill references two famous songs from the Civil War era –“John Brown’s Body” and “Shenandoah.”
“John Brown’s Body” can be traced back to a 1850s Methodist camp meeting tune. It was a natural marching song and began to permeate army posts. In 1859 the militant abolitionist John Brown was executed for his failed raid on Harper’s Ferry and the tune acquired new lyrics that included: “John Brown’s body lies a-moulderin’ in the grave. His soul is marching on!” The song spread throughout the Union Army in the early 1860s and soldiers added new verses, including one about hanging Jefferson Davis’s (the president of the Confederacy) body to a tree. Interestingly, though, the abolitionist John Brown wasn’t the first John Brown the song was about. Historian Brett Hugh explains, “A marching song with a huge number of spontaneously composed verses, ‘John Brown's Body’ was originally full of good-natured fun, humor, irony, and clever double meanings. The words were inspired by a runty sergeant in the Union Army who happened to have the same name--John Brown--as the famous abolitionist who had been killed a few years earlier…Most who sung ‘John Brown's Body, even in Civil War times, assumed that ‘John Brown's body lies a-moulderin' in the grave’ was some sort of strangely-worded tribute to the famous John Brown, never imagining that the ‘soul’ that went ‘marching on’ was not that of the fierce, bearded abolitionist at all, but rather that of an undersized Union Army sergeant in an oversized backpack.”
The song mutated again into perhaps its most famous version when an abolitionist author, Julia Ward Howe, heard the song at a military parade in 1861 and decided to pen a new version that celebrated the Union cause. This came to be known as the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and became even more popular than the original. It was sung not only by Union troops but also by civilians. The lyrics include: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: / He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; / He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword, / His truth is marching on. // Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! (3x) / His truth is marching on.”
“Shenandoah” dates to the early 19th century and is said to derive from the songs of French travelers on the Missouri River. It was included in the New Dominion Monthly in 1876 under “Sailor Songs” and Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in 1882. It continued to be popular with sailors and was considered a sea shanty/work song. The Library of Congress explains, “As unclear as is the song’s origin, so is the definitive interpretation of its text. Some believe that the song refers to the river of the same name. Others suggest that it is of Native American origin, for it tells the tale of Sally, the daughter of the Indian Chief Shenandoah, who is courted for seven years by a white Missouri river trader.” The folklorist Alan Lomax interviewed a former ship’s captain, Richard Maitland, who claimed it was actually a logging song first before it became a sea shanty.
Regardless, by the late 19th century it made its way down the river to the sea. The opening lines are: “Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you / Away, you rolling river / Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you / Away, we’re bound away, across the wide Missouri.” It was also sung by African Americans who worked loading and unloading wool and cotton from ships; this gave rise to an alteration of the lyrics to “this world of mis’ry” rather than the “wide Missouri.”
