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| Field name | Value |
|---|---|
| Collection Reference Number | GLC03617.10 |
| From Archive Folder | Song sheets pertaining to the death of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth |
| Title | Ellsworth's Avengers |
| Date | ca. 1861 |
| Author | Hudson, A.L. (fl. 1861) |
| Document Type | Miscellany |
| Content Description | Published by J. Wrigley at 27 Chatham Street in New York. Marked No. 844 at the top. Sung to the tune of "Annie Lisle." That song is an 1857 ballad by Boston, Massachusetts songwriter H. S. Thompson. The song is about the death of a young maiden, by what some have speculated to be tuberculosis, an awful circumstance which mirrors the tragic death of the young Colonel Ellsworth in Alexandria, Virginia. Six stanza song, which includes the chorus: "Strike, freemen, for the Union! / Sheathe your swords no more, / While remains in arms a traitor / On Columbia's shore." Framed by several images of blacks, including angels holding a banner that says "Ethiopian." Slightly different version of song is at GLC03617.02 and .04. Last four lines different: By our hopes of your bright heaven, / By the land we love / By the God who reigns above us, / We'll avenge they blood." |
| Subjects | Civil War Military History Union Forces Confederate States of America Death Propaganda Art, Music, Theater, and Film African American History Freemen Slavery |
| Place written | New York, New York |
| Theme | The American Civil War; The American Civil War; Arts & Literature |
| Sub-collection | Papers and Images of the American Civil War |
| Additional Information | Colonel Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth, a friend of Abraham Lincoln, was commander of the 11th New York Infantry, a unit of Zouaves from the New York City Fire Department. He was killed on 24 May 1861, attempting to remove a Confederate flag from the Marshall House, a hotel in Alexandria, Virginia. |
| Copyright | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |
| Module | Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945 |
| Civil War: Unit | New York 11th Infantry |