Confederate "Heritage" Month 2020, April 4: “Tenting Tonight”

This song "Tenting Tonight" was one of the most popular songs on both sides during the Civil War. It’s particularly interesting because in the broad sense, it’s an antiwar song. Or, maybe better said, a “war sucks” song. One can imagine that some commanders wouldn’t have been thrilled to hear their soldiers singing a campfire song with lyrics like this:

We are tired of war on the old camp ground,
Many are dead and gone,
Of the brave and true who've left their homes,
Others been wounded long.

With the repeated chorus lines:

Many are the hearts that are weary tonight,
Wishing for the war to cease;
Many are the hearts looking for the right
To see the dawn of peace.
Tenting tonight, tenting tonight,
Tenting on the old camp ground.

But the song is not one calling for desertion or rebellion. It’s a song expressing a feeling of solidarity among people participating in a horrible enterprise, which of course war is.

Even in the most just and necessary war – and the Union war was a just and necessary one. The Confederate war for slavery was certainly not.

Tenting Tonight performed by Pete Seeger:

For more on the song, see:

• Francis Towers, "Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp Ground": A Civil War Song of Sorrow American Music Preservation n/d, accessed 04/04/2020
• Tenting Tonight (2018), Wikipedia