Does anybody know something about the usage
of (Tin) Whistles in Irish troops/companies/bataillons/whatever in the Civil War? Could be quite interesting.
(what about notes of this music? some reference available?)
I can’t really help you with the history aspect, but the first tinwhistle I bought came from the gift shop of a Civil War museum here in Atlanta… I figure there had to be some usage during that time. 
Good luck in your search, if you find anything please post here! I’d be most interested…
Hwyl fawr,
Andrea ~*~
Hi Frodo,
Assuming you mean the American Civil War (we had a few of our own over the years here in Britain )
http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/warweb.html
gives several good links to Civil War Music Sites.
Bravo6 asked similar questions some months ago when he was looking to play a whistle in Civil War re-enactment scenarios, especially around the campfire in the evenings. There’s a wealth of tunes & songs around, some still in common use today, some have dropped out of favour. Some were used by one side or other, some by both but with different word settings. Seerch for any threads with Bravo6 in them, and you may find some better links and interesting discussions.
The whole Civil War music scene is so big, a musician could specialise in just this music and have years of work ahead of him/her, both learning the tunes & songs, and performing them for pleasure or pay!
MCM Transatlantic Whistle Detective Agency - No Case Too Small (terms & conditions apply)- Branches in London & Salt Lake City
[ This Message was edited by: Martin Milner on 2002-05-21 11:14 ]
The recorder homepage also claims, “The recorder found use as a marching instrument in the American Civil War (Waitzman 1967: 224).”
That war was not a terribly organized effort, in a lot of cases, but they probably marched to the sound of tinwhistles when and if they had them. They can do about what a fife can do, for military purposes. Oh, I don’t know, the tone of 19th Century pennywhistles may have been a little too quiet.
Not to be a wet blanket, but I’ve read many thousands of pages of ACW writings and seen just about every published picture, not to mention quite a few that weren’t published. I have never seen a single reference to or picture of an end-blown whistle of the pennywhistle type, and strongly doubt that they were used more than extremely rarely if at all. Civil War musicians used bugle, fife and drum for martial purposes, and military bands seemed to favor brass instruments in much the same size and tone range as seen in a drum and bugle corps today. Woodwinds are only rarely seen and the photo resolution doesn’t make it entirely clear whether they were clarinet or oboe types. Orchestras and concert bands no doubt used a much wider range of instrumentation, but much of it would not have been durable enough for ‘field music’.
I’ve also never seen or heard of an American pennywhistle much older than the 1920’s. Just because cheap conical tin whistles are sold in museum or battlefield gift shops isn’t really relevant - they also sell plastic tomahawks, for crying out loud! Could an odd soldier have had one, probably imported from England? No doubt, but I think it HIGHLY unlikely they were used in any official or general fashon. Around the camp fire, a fiddle or Jew’s Harp or maybe a concertina would have been the predominant instruments.
Let’s face it - for a lot of us a pennywhistle was/is attractive because we just couldn’t play a flute or fife. I’ve no beef if the reenactors want to play them, as long as they use an all-metal one, because in actual fact, the tourists are gone by then anyway and a fife is, for me, anyway, unplayable. I just think it’d be wrong to assume from such casual use that they were present in any numbers in The Late Unpleasantness.
Nothing salves a weary soul like a cheap whistle.
[ This Message was edited by: Chuck_Clark on 2002-05-21 20:14 ]
I don’t mean to appear obnoxious here or anything, but I think he was meaning the Civil war in the UK…
Probably the source of the resistance songs like Rising Of The Moon, The Minstrel Boy, The Ould Orange Flute, ect.
I’m pretty sure he meant United States, hence the subject line of US Civil War…
Actually, the particular Civil War shop I was referring to has managed to stay very historically accurate; it’s a small museum. No plastic tomahawks there. And I was only being half-serious, hence my smiley face. Should have used a 
North Carolina would have had a very high population of Scottish immigrants (quite a bit of Irish too), and they would have found their way to surrounding states. It would make sense that many of them would have taken their whistles with them as they went off to war…not necessarily to lead the fray, but for entertainment purposes. Just supposition on my part, no hard historical evidence to offer.
Andrea ~*~
[ This Message was edited by: aderyn_cyrdd on 2002-05-21 21:28 ]
My thought is that if there were any evidence of pennywhistle usage in the War, that Cooperman, who makes whistles for these museum shops, would mention it on that little paper, which tries to connect the tinwhistle with American history, that comes with their whistle.
P. S. Why Irish troops? Weren’t most 19th-Century whistles from England?
quia si confitearis in ore tuo Dominum Iesum et in corde tuo credideris quod Deus illum excitavit ex mortuis salvus eris —Rom. X,9.
[ This Message was edited by: Walden on 2002-05-22 00:09 ]
Put in “wild Geese” as a search word on Google, also look for the Irish Brigade, there’s some great material there about the Irishmen who fought in the Civil War…
Frodo-
There is a film called Glory, which I thought was pretty good, that has a few scenes with fifes, whistles, etc. In fact, I even recognized one of the tunes there as having some Irish routes, but anyway, I’m pretty sure that people did play them ‘back in the day.’
-Ross
Any trooper who played fife, drum, or bugle around the campfire in the evening deserved getting his arse kicked. Most likely for pleasure they played the common instruments of the day, such as fiddle. Can’t let a little thing like a war interfere with your music, ya know!
And you can bet some of those country boys knew how to whittle a wooden whistle from cane or some other readily available material. If you want to be authentic, make your own homemade whistle in some random key based on the length of whatever material you’ve got available, and don’t worry about playing in a group…
I don’t have any hard evidence of them either, but I also can’t believe there weren’t a few end-blown flutes around the campfire, if not true “tin whistles”. The music of the time certainly has strong Celtic roots, I’m sure the instrumentation would too.
As someone else mentioned there were numerous Irish regiments. The Yankee Irish Brigade is probably the most famous, but there were plenty of others. My ancestor Patrick Walsh fought for the 10th Tennessee (Irish). (That was the official name, with the Irish in parentheses).
As an aside, Patrick was captured at Ft. Donelson and when he was paroled he went back home to run his “tippling house”, serving the Yankees in occupied Nashville. A true Irishman!
Beth, not really on on the subject but sharing a little history lesson with y’all…
[ This Message was edited by: rebl_rn on 2002-05-23 08:01 ]
Old Mr. Clarke started making whistles circa 1843, a mere 18 years before the American civil war. (1861-1865) It would make an interesting study. Would the instrument have been popular enough to warrant distribution to the US?
My beloved’s family still has her great grandfather’s fife. He played it in the Union army Fife & Drum corps. They also have the mini-ball that a sharpshooter used to remove his leg.
According to my friend Ken (he’s from North Carolina) during the war of “northern agression” buglers, fifers, drummers, flag bearers and officers were primary targets. I understand drummers but why fifers? (Just kidding!)
Gary
PS (the edit) Well I’ll be dipped in butter! This link shows two whistles in the original civil war instruments gallery. http://www.geocities.com/cwfifedrum/originalfd.html
Cuimhnich air na daoine o’n d’thàinig thu
“Remember the people from whom you came”
[ This Message was edited by: Gary on 2002-05-22 17:47 ]
Frodo earns a Red Pill!
http://www.geocities.com/whistleannex/Matrix_OtherMusic.html
Whistles probably were not used on the battlefield. They’re just too quiet. My kids can sleep upstairs while I play a Clarke in the living room. On the other hand, a drummer who lives 2 miles from me called and asked if that was me playing “Hell on the Wabash” on a fife. It was. And I was inside the house (with the windows open)!
After Ken Burns made the Civil War series for PBS, he created a companion film, ‘Songs of the Civil War’. In one of the songs, Kathy Mattea sings a Civil War song, backed up by a band containing a tin whistle. I would guess that Mr. Burns makes every attempt to be authentic, even though the whistle in question looks decidedly modern in construction…
Cheers to all.
Byll
For what it’s worth the 2nd South Carolina String Band has two whistlers.
http://www.civilwarband.com/music.html
A web site featuring American civil war toys sells whistles.
http://colo1.midtnn.net/Catalog/catpg29c.htm
Another online civil war store has whistles
http://www.loudounmuseum.org/MSChild/mscatl2b.htm
The last named place describes whistles this way:
Brought to America by early settlers and still used today. A six-hole whistle that is popular today for Celtic and folk music. Simple tunes can be learned in minutes.
The store also sells wooden whistles.
I don’t know the meaning of all this. I haven’t located any place that describes any actual history of whistles in the war.
Steve
Here’s one more. The Amoskeag Players have a flute/whistle player. Here’s how they describe the whistle:
“A penny whistle is just that, a cheap, readily available. and easily played instrument. While it is mostly associated today with Celtic music. there is evidence of a wide acceptance across the music spectrum in the 18th and 19th centuries. Its more elaborate cousin, the keyed wooden flute, enjoyed an extensive popularity.”
Their site is:
http://www.pricelessads.com/amoskeag/
Steve
These are modern reinactors and writers, who haven’t provided any evidence of their claims.
In other words, about all the hard evidence we have is some photographs at http://www.geocities.com/cwfifedrum/originalfd.html which may have whistles amongst them, but appear to me to all be fifes and piccolos.
I’m all for playing the whistle at the reinactment --they play them at the Renaissance Fair. Tinwhistles wouldn’t be outside the realm of reasonable poetic licence [that’s a British spelling, and I’m an American] either at the Ren-Fair or the War Reinactment. They are far more probable than the plastic buttons most likely on many participants’ clothing.
I’ve been off on vacation and therefore away from my computer. While I was catching up, I noticed this thread and wanted to add a few comments to it.
Someone cited the absence of anything like a pennywhistle in U.S. Civil War era photographs and writings that survive as evidence that they were not used or were at least not widely used, but this is not good reasoning. Photography was still relatively new then; doing it at all required cumbersome equipment and considerable skill. When people had their portraits “made” it was rather like sitting for a formal portrait today, and – then as now – one put one’s best foot forward. Even “action” or “candid” photographs of the time were carefully posed. One has to reason from photographic evidence with great care on that account, because the evidence is biased and absence from the photographs doesn’t mean that a thing didn’t exist or wasn’t used. Try using a sample of your own snapshots to infer the general ownership and use of the flush toilet in modern America as a familiar, if rather mundane, example.
Absence from photographs was once used as an argument that the troops didn’t have or use harmonicas, which were in existence then, but subsequent excavations of campsites along the Union route to Gettysburg turned up some of the little brass divider plates and demonstrated that the troops had them. ( I wish I could give a reference with certainty, but I have long forgotten it. I think it may have been a conversation with the park historian at Petersburg Battlefield National Park. ) Clarke pennywhistles are and were made of tin-coated sheet steel or iron ( If I have it right … ), and if the tin coating were imperfect – as most still are – the whistle would have rusted away long ago if it were buried in the ground, or even perhaps if simply exposed to atmospheric humidity. The wooden fipple would very likely have decayed as well, so there might be little to no evidence remaining of pennywhistles played by soldiers.
Similarly, absence of mention in documents that survive is no indication that they weren’t used. We know that the troops used the equivalent of “Jody Calls” when marching, but have no idea what they were like because nobody apparently thought it worthwhile to write the words down – or decency prohibited the attempt.
Whether or not they were imported into this country – and perhaps the Clarke people could help with an answer to that question – pennywhistles might have been brought over with the hundreds of thousands of emigrants who came here from Ireland at that time.
Someone else cited Ken Burns’ celebrated documentary as evidence for the authenticity of music or instruments, but this is also not justified. If you listen carefully to the soundtrack, there is a whole section missing from All Quiet Along The Potomac, and I’ve never found or heard a version of Angel Band that sounds anything like what he used. He appears to have taken considerable poetic license with the music. Note also that he used much of the same music in his subsequent Baseball documentary, for Heaven’s sake. So much for historical relevance.
Best regards,
Neil Dickey
[ This Message was edited by: ndjr on 2002-06-11 20:47 ]