that a rebel war had broken out, promptly decided to return home with his ship, where she and her services are wanted.
There are times when (as in the case of
in 1811) it is the duty of an officer to disobey his orders.
This was one of those occasions.
The
.
“I wish I was in Dixie.” --So common has become the error that this is a Southern song, and relates' to Southern institutions, that I must be pardoned if I break the enchantment, and relate the facts about it. I see, also, that
Mr. Albert Pike, of
Arkansas, has written a song recently, in which he suggests that we
Advance the flag of Dixie;
Hurrah!
Hurrah!
For Dixie's land we'll take our stand,
And live or die for Dixie! &c.
Now, I do not wish to spoil a pretty illusion, but the real truth is, that Dixie is an indigenous Northern negro refrain, as common to the writer hereof as the lamp-posts in New York city, seventy or seventy-five years ago. It was one of the every-day allusions of boys, at that time, in all of their out-door sports.
And no one ever heard of Dixie's land being other than
Manhattan Island until recently, when it has been erroneously supposed to refer to the
South, from its connection with pathetic negro allegory.
When slavery existed in New York, one “ Dixy” owned a large tract of land on
Manhattan Island, and large numbers of slaves.
The increase of the slaves and the increase of the abolition sentiment caused an emigration of the slaves to more thorough and secure slave sections, and the negroes who were thus sent off (many being born there) naturally looked buck to their old homes, where they had lived in clover, with feelings of regret, as they could not imagine any place like Dixy's. Hence it became synonymous with an ideal locality combining ease, comfort, and material happiness of every description.
In those days negro singing and minstrelsy were in their infancy, and any subject that could be wrought into a ballad was eagerly picked up; this was the case with “ Dixie.”
It originated in New York, and assumed the proportions of a song there.
In its travels it has been enlarged, and has “ gathered moss;” it has picked up a note here and there; a ‘chorus’ has been added to it, and from an indistinct “ chant” of two or three notes, it has become an elaborate melody; but the fact that it is not a Southern song “ cannot be rubbed out;” the fallacy is so popular to the contrary, that I have thus been at pains to state the real origin of it.
P.
--Charleston Courier, June 11.
