(ABRAHAM LINCOLN) Benjamin Henry Grierson Campaign Song O

Sale 2600 - Lot 135

Price Realized: $ 750

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750

(ABRAHAM LINCOLN.) Benjamin Henry Grierson. Campaign Song . . . Offered for Sale by the Meredosia Wide-Awakes. Letterpress broadside, 8 x 7 inches; minimal wear and soiling. Meredosia, IL, [1860]

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

Benjamin Henry Grierson (1826-1911) was a musician and composer in Illinois before the Civil War. He wrote this Lincoln campaign song to the tune of "Old Dan Tucker" for his local Wide Awakes chapter in Meredosia, about 50 miles west of Springfield. The words are unequivocally anti-slavery, accusing the Democrats of bowing "to slavery's dark command" and hoping "the barbarous slave-trade to revive." Prognosis: "Dug's legs are short and he can't travel / Old Abe will make them all scratch gravel. . . . We'll send old Abe to Washington / Before they can secede or run / He'll let the wind out of their sails / And fence them in with walnut rails."

During the war to follow, Grierson became (somewhat improbably) a distinguished Union cavalry general, and then an enthusiastic leader of a Buffalo Soldier regiment after the war.