 Coming HomebyLauren Roberts
A house is made of walls and beams; a home is made with love and dreams.
Though the song was written in 1822 it didn’t become popular until the Civil War opened with shots fired at Fort Sumter by which point the author was already nine years in his grave that “Home, Sweet Home” by John Howard Payne found its place in American music history. It is no small irony that the song was beloved by both Federal (or Union) and Confederate soldiers, and that several accounts mention that the opposing troops, camped near one another the night before or after combat could be heard harmonizing “Home, Sweet Home” across the battle lines. One was a few weeks after the Battle of Fredericksburg, which took place on December 13, 1862. Each side was camped on opposite sides of Virginia’s Rappahannock River after one of the bloodiest battles to date. More than 12,000 Union and 5,000 Confederate troops had been killed or wounded and feelings of hate and bitterness were running high. Then the music began. According to Ernest L. Abe who published “ ‘Home, Sweet Home’: A Civil War Solder’s Favorite Song” in the May 1996 issue of America’s Civil War magazine that song could have ended the war if it were up to the solders. As was customary in camp, at twilight the regimental bands on either side began their evening concerts. When they were bivouacked close together, as they were that night, the opposing bands would sometimes play at the same time, trying to drown each other out. On other occasions they took turns. Often the bands waged a musical contest, each playing their own patriotic tunes with as much panache and enthusiasm as they could muster, making many twilight concerts veritable ‘battles of the bands.’ Toward the end of the evening concerts, the music typically became more poignant and tender. On one particular night, a Federal band was especially melodic in its rendition of the Civil War's favorite tune. The slow, plaintive notes floated like feathers through the air, gently nestling into homesick hearts. Night was the time when men wrote home to their mothers and sweethearts, or held silent communion with themselves. The soothing notes sent the heartfelt words of the beloved song running through their minds: Almost as soon as the Union band began playing 'Home, Sweet Home,' Confederate bands took up the strain. One after another, every regimental band in both armies joined in. Everyone ceased what they were doing. Pens were put down; books were closed; games of tag stopped; cards drifted to the ground. There wasn't a sound, except for the music. Then, in the words of Frank Mixson, a private in the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, 'Everyone went crazy.' Mixson had not witnessed anything like it before. Both sides began cheering, jumping up and down and throwing their hats into the air. Mixson had never seen anything to compare with the wild cheering that followed the song's lingering notes. Had there not been a river between them, reflected Mixson, the two armies would have met face to face, shaken hands, and ended the war on the spot.
But it wasn’t the only time that the song made comrades of enemies. In the summer of 1864, the two sides were holding picket lines only a few feet apart in some places and when night fell and exhaustion set in a bargain was made to avoid firing so all could get a good night’s sleep—but not before they had their usual musical interlude, “Home, Sweet Home” being one of the songs. And it had happened repeatedly throughout the war years. Unfortunately, Federal Army officers forbade their bands to play “Home, Sweet Home” out of fear it would make the men so homesick they would desert or become too demoralized to fight, not realizing that the song actually had the opposite effect. Abraham Lincoln was also a great admirer of the song. When Italian opera star Adelina Patti performed at the White House in 1862, Lincoln and his wife were still mourning the loss of their twelve-year-old son, Willie, from typhoid fever. Miss Patti went through a repertoire of her best work, ending with the sad song, “The Last Rose of Summer.” But seeing Mary Lincoln in tears and the president’s face in his hands she realized the song had been a painful reminder of their loss and began a happy song. Lincoln stopped her and, in a choking voice, asked her to sing “Home, Sweet Home,” the only song, he said, that could give them any solace from their grief. Both the words and music came from an opera, Clari, or The Maid of Milan, which had its debut in London, England, on May 8, 1823. The tune was composed by Henry Bishop (1786-1855), the most famous English composer of the day, but it was the poignant lyrics written by expatriate American John Howard Payne that made the song so popular. ‘Mid Pleasures and Palaces, Though We May An Exile from Home
It was while he was in college that his mother died and his father soon declared bankruptcy. Payne left school to help support the family by going on stage and he made his début, at the age of 16 years. Despite critical praise and a tour he was persuaded, when he returned home, to leave the stage which he did, but only temporarily. When his father died, he turned to Europe to pursue his theatre interests. He began in London in February 1813, and his début there was also a success. From there he made a tour of English provinces, then visited Paris. When he returned to England it was with a translation of a popular French melodrama, then running at the Parisian theatres. He had translated the play more as an exercise in the language than with any idea of producing it but the management of the Drury Lane Theatre, impressed, persuaded him to return to Paris with the idea of seeking out other Parisian stage plays for possible production at the Drury. Though he did this, he also had the first of his financial controversies and failed to receive remuneration. He was hired by the manager of Covent Garden but that lasted only one season, and shortly thereafter sprained his ankle so badly he was unable to appear at an engagement elsewhere. He continued bouncing around. First, he wrote a tragedy on the subject of Brutus, which was successfully produced. When the printer of the theatre bought the copyright, he wrote a preface, acknowledging his obligation to several other plays on the subject, stating, “I have had no hesitation in adopting the conceptions and language of my predecessors wherever the seemed likely to strengthen the plan which I have prescribed.” Unfortunately, this did not stop allegations of plagiarism, which cost him in both the reputation and financial areas. Tired of what he viewed as ill treatment, he opened a theatre himself which though successful in some ways closed with considerable loss. He ended up in Paris again on a mission but without getting paid for it. Financially, things were difficult. It was during this rough time that he wrote what become the song for which he would forever be known. In Paris, he received a request from Charles Kemble, now manager of Covent Garden, for a play. According to an article in the New York Times, From a Foreign Grave: Payne offered him a number of manuscripts for £230, among them being a translation of a play called “Angioletta.” Kemble accepted the offer and was about to produce “Angioletta” when a rival theatre brought out the same piece. Thereupon Payne slightly changed the plot, introduced several songs and duets into the piece, and transformed it into an opera, under the title of “Clari; or the Maid of Milan.” The song “Home, Sweet Home,” was introduced in the second act and sung by Clari. The opera was an instantaneous and wonderful success, and made the fortunes of all connected with it except the author. It was first produced on May 18, 1823, with a Miss Tree, a sister of the famous Ellen Tree, afterward Mrs. Charles Kean, in the title role. The music was written by Sir Henry Bishop, the air being suggested by Payne himself. He wrote to Bishop from Paris, before the opera was produced, that he had not time to polish the songs, but thought that “ ’Home, Sweet Home,’ as a refrain, would come in nicely.” When the song was published 100,000 copies were at once disposed of, and the profits of the publishers two years after its first issue are said to have amounted to 2,000 guineas. But even, wrote Gabriel Harrison, Payne’s nineteenth-century biographer, “with all the success of the opera and the publication of the song, Mr. Payne was the least benefited of all concerned.” Payne soon returned to London to superintend the production of a French play and started a publication called the Opera-olass, which never got beyond the prospectus stage. He journeyed to America and through political connections was appointed United States Consul to Tunis, where he spent several years. he again returned to America to solicit an easier diplomatic post. He failed in that and went back to Tunis where he died in 1852. He was buried there in St. George’s Protestant Cemetery. Sadly, his money mismanagement followed him even to the grave: Some of his effects were auctioned off to pay his debts. In September 1873, a colossal bronze bust of Payne was unveiled in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, with an address by Thomas Kinsella, the reading of an original poem by John G. Saxe, and chorus singing by public school children. Then in February 1883,his remains were returned to America in lavish style. They were held in state at New York’s City Hall, then reinterred in a ceremony in Washington, DC, on the ninety-first anniversary of his birth. Finally, in 1970, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Bookmark specifications: Home Sweet Home
Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines has reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, nearly 1,300 bookmarks and approximately the same number of books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She is a member of the National Books Critics Circle (NBCC) as well as a longtime book design judge for Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. Contact Lauren.
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Payne had been born in New York on June 9, 1792, the son of a schoolmaster who as a child showed as great a promise in the creative arts as he would later display in financial management. Though he had considerable stage talents, his family and especially his father discouraged his interest in the theatre—it was at the time most definitely not considered a respectable profession—so he went to work at age 13 as a clerk in an accounting firm. On the side and unknown to anyone else, he founded a periodical, the Thespian Mirror, devoted to the theatre. It was his good fortune that an attack was made on it by a columnist for the Evening Post because it brought him to the attention of the editor who was astounded to find the mind behind publication belonged to one so young. The editor later wrote about the visit: “His answer were such as to dispel all doubts as to any imposition, and I found that it required an effort on my part to keep up the conversation as in choice a style as his own.” Through that second article, Payne came to the attention of a benefactor who offered to send him to Union College. It was there that Payne began another newspaper, the Pastime, which he alone produced for twenty-five issues.