“Down by the River-Side” was first published in 1918 but was being sung long before that, probably as early as the Civil War. It is and is not an antiwar song. Its opposition to war is found only in its refrain line, and even that is as personal as it is political. Most of its text is focused on a utopian vision of a final time, when the singer will wear a starry crown and golden shoes and a long white robe, and many recorded performances express that utopian vision and energy rather than war resistance.
Still, the maker or makers of the song chose “ain’t gonna study war no more” as their refrain line, and imagined, in that final time, a conversation with the “Prince of Peace.” The antiwar energies of the song were latent even when not expressed, and later in the twentieth century, notably at protests against the Vietnam War, those energies were activated, and the song became a canonical song of opposition.