LEWISTON — Songs prominent during the Civil War were performed Sunday at the Franco Heritage Center in an event marking the 150th anniversary of the war’s end.

Presented by the Maine Music Society, songs representing different periods and sides of the conflict were presented along with an appearance from an actor portraying a Civil War hero from Maine.

Charles Plummer played the part of Gen. Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine Regiment. Dressed in a Union uniform, Plummer addressed the crowd between musical sets, first evoking the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

“We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We have felt —we still feel — the passion of life to its top. In our youth, our hearts were touched with fire, and many a heart was touched with fire during the Civil War. And music proved to be a very wonderful antidote for calming the lives and bringing some comfort to those hearts that were touched with fire after a battle.”

Plummer said that as it was for civilians at home, music was an essential part of a soldier’s life. The people of wartime America wrote, learned and performed songs to entertain themselves and influence those around them.

According to Plummer, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee said to his regimental band, “I cannot believe we can have an army without music.”

Plummer referenced what happened one night before the Battle of Stone’s River in Murfreesboro, Tenn., in 1863. “After the bands of both the Union and Confederate armies had finished their usual evening serenade, the Union band struck up slowly and softly the song ‘Home Sweet Home.'”

“As the notes floated through the stillness of the night,” Plummer said, “the soldiers of both sides were wondering if they would be wounded the next day, or whether they would be killed the next day or if they would ever see home again.”

“Then the Union band struck up ‘Home Sweet Home’ and the Confederate band joined in until each army was playing ‘Home Sweet Home’ — and that continued until the music had faded away into the night.”

But it wasn’t all “Home Sweet Home” in the beginning. Prewar Top 40 songs were mostly church hymns. It didn’t take long before the North and South were at war — and tunes became less involved with a new Jerusalem and bringing sinners home and more like “Battle Cry for Freedom” and down with the traitor and such.

What about the other guys? Sure, they had songs too, although not as many. “Dixie War Song” and “The Yellow Rose of Texas” rallied soldiers from the Confederate States of America.

Years of hearing Bugs Bunny belt out “I dream of Jeanie, she’s a light brown hare,” led some people to realize that “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” was an actual Civil War Song — written by the same guy, Stephen Foster, who was responsible for “Oh! Suzanna.”

On Sunday, the Androscoggin Chorale brought life and authentic renderings of songs throughout the Civil War period — especially wonderfully expressive soprano Britny Anderson, whose voice soared above the crowd.

Conductor John Corrie also joined in the singing, showing he still has the chops from his days at Northwestern University and the Yale University School of Music.

dmcintire@sunjournal.com

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