Description
R.W. Randolph published "Stonewall Jackson’s Way" in Richmond, VA in 1863. The sheet music deliberately misdirected the identity of the composer by stating, “Found on a Confederate Sergeant of the old Stonewall Brigade, taken at Winchester, Va.” This was necessary to shield the songwriter, John W. Palmer from arrest as a Southern sympathizer. The Baltimore native was a war correspondent for Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune and assigned to cover the 1862 Maryland Campaign. As Palmer listened to the roar of the guns, he whistled an Oregon logger’s tune and penned “Stonewall’s” ballad.
"Garryowen" translates from Gaelic as Owen’s Garden and is the name of a suburb of Limerick, Ireland. The lyrics immortalize a gang of hooligans who ran riot in the neighborhood. The melody first appeared in print in Edward Light’s Introduction to Playing the Harp-Lute & Apollo-Lyre (London 1785) as Cory Owen. By the time of the War Between the States the song was well known to both Rebel and Federal musicians and it appeared in a number of Civil War songsters.
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