from "Six Songs by J. P. Webster" [No. 5]
To Mrs. Callie Byche of Indianapolis, Ind.
"Brother in the Army" (25 Jan 1865)
By Joseph Philbrick Webster, 1819-1875

Chicago: ROOT & CADY, 95 Clark St.
Plate No. 427 5
[Source: 200002219@LoC/IHAS-CWM]

"In passing through on or the Wards of the Hospital
for the Insane, we were introduced by the Superin-
tendent to a new patient, opposite her name in the
table of the Report showing the causes of insanity was
found, "Brother in the Army."  She is a young lady of
about twenty years of age, and proved to be quite ra-
tional upon all subjects but one the_war.  The Doctor
asked her to sing for us, and taking up her Guitar, she
improvised a plaintive song, with a chorus of a wild and
impassioned eloquence."

1. 
To a beautiful spot on the Tippecanoe,
My spirit is wandering now;
I see the blue hills reposing in peace,
And nestled among them my home.
A crabapple shades the spacious old porch,
Whose pillars with ivy were crowned.
In days that are gone, in years that are past,
When I was a dweller at home.
[RECITATIVO]
Oh. the wild bugle sounds loudly at noon and at midnigtht,
Piercing my soul and rending my heartstrings asunder.

CHORUS [sung after each verse]
Still they whisper come away
(Come away come away,)
Join your brother in his play
(Join your brother in his play)
'Mong the flow'rs by your childhood's happy home.

2. 
Twenty summers ago I was born in that cot,
And there in my childhood I played.
I drank from that spring that gurgles along,
Thro' archways of willow and fern.
The woodbine I trained to clamber the walls,
In many an hour of May.
When I was a girl, a lighthearted girl,
And lived with my brother at home.
[RECITATIVO]
On, the loud tramp of an army with music and banners,
Fills the whole earth and startles the nation's that slumber.

3. 
In the long winter nights, brother Henry and I,
Would list to the moan of the pines,
And list to the tales our grandmother told,
Of heroes who went to the wars.
In summer we climbed the weatherworn cliffs
To look at the river below
And sweet was the music of waters and birds,
For brother and I were at home.
[RECITATIVO]
Oh! the loud roar of cannon awakes me from sleeping
Oh in my dreams I hear sabre and musketry rattle.

4. 
But the lights have gone out in that beautiful cot,
And all the sweet flowers are dead-
The spring has gone dry, and birds sing no more
In the crabapple tree by the porch;
For mother soon died when brother went off
To battle, and I was sent here.
Oh, brother! come to me, and let us go back,
To dwell in our cottage at home.
[RECITATIVO]
Hark! hear the battlecry- see how the wounded fall bleeding;
Lo! in the smoke of battle my brother is dying.