238 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



right to wear the badge of the Grand Army than to hold 

 the title to all the fortune that I have won in my life." 

 It is the creed of every Union soldier to love his state; 

 but to love the Union as a whole, is a love above and be- 

 yond the love of even the state of his birth or the state of 

 his adoption. 



On occasions like the present we again sing the songs 

 and hear the tunes of the war of 1861 ; but in capturing 

 the Confederate forces and bringing back these states 

 again into the Union, we capture and appropriate their 

 music as well. 



John Wesley, in speaking of the adoption by him, of 

 the popular airs of his day, and their use, by setting them 

 to hymns, said, that "he did not want the devil to have 

 any of the good tunes." And in the same spirit our 

 bands play "Dixie," "Yankee Doodle," "Maryland," 

 and "Marching Through Georgia." And the music that 

 once stirred the hearts of one or the other of the hostile 

 armies now rouses enthusiasm among both — and why 

 should we not do this? 



The power of music was strikingly illustrated on one 

 occasion during the siege of Vicksburg. The Chicago 

 Board of Trade regiment was lying in the trenches, when 

 Jules and Frank Lombard, the great singers, visited 

 some of their Chicago friends, in the shelter of the be- 

 sieging earthworks. Here and there along the line the 

 cannon boomed at intervals; the firing was not steady, 

 but the cracking of the rifle of the sharpshooter kept 

 everybody on the alert. Some of the soldiers asked the 

 Lombard boys to sing, and they struck up some popular 

 air, and as their clear and powerful voices carried the 

 melody across the lines the firing slackened and soon 

 ceased altogether along that part of the lines. Having 

 first sung some popular songs, which might be enjoyed 

 on both sides, they sang "The Star Spangled Banner," 



