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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment 6 0 Browse Search
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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, Chapter 9: negro Spirituals. (search)
neric name. One of these consisted simply in the endless repetition — after the manner of certain college songsof the mysterious line,-- Rain fall and wet Becky Lawton. But who Becky Lawton was, and why she should or should not be wet, and whether the dryness was a reward or a penalty, none could say. I got the impression thaBecky Lawton was, and why she should or should not be wet, and whether the dryness was a reward or a penalty, none could say. I got the impression that, in either case, the event was posthumous, and that there was some tradition of grass not growing over the grave of a sinner; but even this was vague, and all else vaguer. The other song I heard but once, on a morning when a squad of men came in from picket duty, and chanted it in the most rousing way. It had been a stormy aestion, then just beginning, and to the more mercenary aims they attributed to the white soldiers. But Hangman Johnny remained always a myth as inscrutable as Becky Lawton. As they learned all their songs by ear, they often strayed into wholly new versions, which sometimes became popular, and entirely banished the others. Thi