The American Civil War commenced with the firing by Southern Confederate troops on the Union garrison at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbour, South Carolina, at 4.30 am, April 12th 1861. It ended on April 9th 1865 with the surrender by General Robert E. Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. During its four-year campaign, there were 10,000 engagements in battle. Over three million Americans fought each other, killing some 620,000 of their countrymen – two per cent of the population. An estimated 145,000 Irish immigrants fought for the Northern cause, some 40,000 for the South. Many who in Ireland shared the same Republican ideals.
‘Your soldier’s heart almost stood still as he watched those sons of Erin fearlessly rush to their death. The brilliant assault on Mary’s Heights of their Irish Brigade was beyond description. Why, my darling, we forgot they were fighting us, and cheer after cheer at their fearlessness went up all along our lines.’
Confederate General George Pickett
The minie ball caused ninety-four per cent of all wounds.
‘I firmly believe that before many centuries more Science will be the master of man. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control. Someday science itself shall have the existence of mankind in its power and the human race commit suicide by blowing up the world.’
Henry Adams, 11th April, 1862
Lavelle’s letter to Ellen is based upon Sullivan Ballou’s letter to his wife Sarah written on 14th July 1861, from Washington DC. A major, 2nd Regiment, Rhode Island Volunteers, he was wounded one week later on 21st July at the battle of First Bull Run. He died on 29th July aged thirty two years. Sarah was twenty four. She never remarried and died at age eighty in 1917. They are buried next to each other at Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island. Ironically, Sullivan Ballou’s love letter to Sarah was never mailed.
The scene where Lavelle shoots Patrick is based on an account at the battle of Malvern Hill where a Sergeant Docherty shot dead his own son, a sniper on the opposing side.
The Crust Farm scene with Dr Licoix and the negro children is based on real events.
The Father Corby scene is based on various recorded accounts of the priest’s dispensation of a General Absolution from sin, before the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. A statue to Fr Corby was erected on a boulder at Gettysburg, in 1910. Some accounts indicate it is the actual boulder on which the priest once stood.
As did Oxy, women joining the armies as men was not unknown and there are at least some reported cases of ‘male’ soldiers actually giving birth. Other ‘roses of intrigue’ acted as spies for either side. Some five hundred Civil War soldiers faced firing squads or the gallows, the majority for desertion.
The description of Le Petit Versailles is based partly upon Evergreen Plantation and also Houmas House Plantation in Louisiana.
Civil War Songs
The first Civil War song was written three days after the firing on Fort Sumter. Four years later, by the time the war was over, two thousand new songs had been added to the American popular songbook. Many existing songs crossed the ocean from Ireland to America, the same songs often sung by both sides of the conflict.
Songs in the book
Readers have seemed interested in the origin of the songs, poems, prayers and sayings used throughout The Whitest Flower and The Element of Fire. These are now posted on www.brendangraham.com
Here are notes to the songs used in The Brightest Day, the Darkest Night.
Praise to the Earth
… a song written for Ellen.
Used by permission Warner Chappell Music/International Music Publications
Ochon an Gorta Mor
An unaccompanied song in Irish in the sean-nos style. I had begun working on this song when co-incidentally I was invited to write a piece for inclusion in the Ceol Reoite (Frozen Music – after Goethe’s ‘Architecture is frozen music’) Millennium project. Composers were challenged to release the ‘frozen music’ in a number of Ireland’s best-known heritage sites
The gifted young sean-nos singer from Barna in Connemara, Roisin Elsafty invested the song with ancient life for the Ceol Reoite project, while what was only intended as a demo, recorded in St Kevin’s Church, Glendalough, slipped un-named on to the Dervish album Spirit as the final and ‘hidden’ track.
Mention must also be made of Nuala Ni Chanainn’s performance of it in Aistir/Voyages, a contemporary dance piece from acclaimed Swiss troupe Tanz Ensemble. Used by permission Warner Chappell Music/International Music Publications.
You Raise Me Up
Norwegian composer, Rolf Lovland and Irish violinist, Fionnuala Sherry, who together make up Secret Garden, contacted me upon reading Ellen’s story in The Whitest Flower, and asked if I would write a lyric to a newly-written melody. The result was You Raise Me Up. It seemed fitting that the circle should be completed and the song end up back with Ellen – and so it has, as Jared Prudhomme’s love song to Louisa. I am grateful to Rolf, in the first instance, for trusting me with his beautiful melody and to the many wonderful artistes the world over, who have lent life to the lyrics; most notably Brian Kennedy’s emotive first recording of it with Secret Garden; and Josh Groban who so movingly brought the song to the heart of America, buiochas mor.
Used by permission Peermusic, Ireland; Universal Music AS, Sweden.
Sleepsong
Again, a Rolf Lovland melody. The words came when sitting by the bedside of my youngest daughter, before she left for Australia. The years just seemed to roll away, to a previous time of lullabies and sleepsongs. It then seemed an appropriate song by which Ellen could say goodbye to Patrick. First recorded by Secret Garden, featuring Saoirse, more recently Kate Ceberano has been singing it … in Australia!
Used by permission Universal Music AS, Sweden
The Fair-Haired Boy
I wrote this specifically to be Ellen’s song … and it is indeed her song for each of her loves, for Patrick, her son – and for all the young men who so tragically perish in the terrible cauldron of Civil War. Of Cathy Jordan’s rendition of it, I could ask nothing more.
Used by permission WarnerChappell Music/ International Music Publications
Crucan na bPaiste
The melody based on a traditional tune – Cailin na Gruaige Bainne – I wrote this song for Ellen. Crucan na bPaiste – a burial place of unbaptised children – sits high in the Maamtrasna Valley, over Lough Nafooey and Lough Mask … and is the location of the final scene in The Whitest Flower. Irish singer Katie McMahon and, more recently, Scottish singer Karen Matheson have each brought to it their special gifts of lifting a song out of the ordinary in which it was written.
Some words written for my daughter’s wedding, it is here Ellen’s remembrance of sustaining elemental things in this area where I live.
The Lakes of Pontchartrain
Since first I heard Paul Brady’s singularly fine version of this old Creole love song I, like Oxy, have wanted to go there. It also seemed fitting, when the character of Kizzie presented herself, that her doomed romance with Oxy should hasten to a conclusion on the shores of the Pontchartrain.
Myfanwy is one of the great Welsh songs of hiraeth, or longing. Bryn Terfel’s evocation of it convinced me it had to be Evan’s cry of belonging for homeland, for his love for Myfanwy, and even for life itself.
The Last Rose of Summer
In one of the many museums I visited in America, I came across a ‘Top Ten’ of American Civil War Songs, of which Moore’s famous melody was at No.1. For centuries those who have crossed the Atlantic Ocean to America have brought their songs with them. Like the people themselves, the songs ended up divided on both sides of the conflict. This was one which brought comfort to the campfires of both North and South.
Has Sorrow Thy Young Days Shaded
Another of Moore’s melodies. The moment I heard Roisin O’ Reilly’s singing of it, I knew it was what Ellen would sing in Mary’s last moments.
Full lyrics are available on www.brendangraham.com