From Wikipedia.
"Lorena" was written in 1856 by the Reverend Henry D.L. Webster after a broken engagement. He wrote the long poem about his fiance, but changed the name to Lorena after the character Lenore in David Allan Poe's poem "The Raven."
His friend Joseph Philbrick Webster put it to music.
Soldiers on both sides during the Civil War sang it around their campfires at night. It was one of the most popular songs on both sides. One Confederate officer even attributed their defeat to "Lorena" saying that the soldiers became so homesick that they lost their fighting effectiveness and some of them even deserted.
Henry Webster's love for a Zanesville, Ohio, girl named Ella Blocksom caused him to write it after she broke off the engagement. (She later married William Waterbee Johnson, a lawyer and Ohio Supreme Court justice from 1879-1886.)
--Old Secesh
No comments:
Post a Comment