Annotation:Minstrel's Return from the War (The)

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MINSTREL'S RETURN FROM THE WAR, THE. American, Air (whole time). C Major (Howe): D Major (Riley). Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The song was composed in 1825 by American songwriter, poet and playwright John Hill Hewitt [1] (1801-1890), born in New York, educated in Boston and West Point (he did not graduate), and died in Baltimore, Maryland. It was Hewitt's first song and one of his most famous; "it eventually became a success internationally, making him the first American-born composer whose fame reached both sides of the Atlantic" [2]. Hewitt lived for several periods of his life in the South, particularly during the Civil War, where he espoused pro-Southern sympathies and contributed in his poetry, music and drama to the Confederate cause.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Howe (Complete Preceptor for the Accordeon), 1843; p. 31. Riley (Riley's Flute Melodies, vol. 4), 1826; p. 35.

Recorded sources: