Virtual Exhibitions

The Barnum Museum has a collection of four diaries all which belonged to a Civil War Soldier named Richard H. Cullen.  I have been transcribing these diaries, and on Monday afternoon I discovered in the back of one the books, what I can best describe as, a playlist.  R.H. Cullen hadwritten out a list of 20 popular songs from his era.  Precisely why he decided to write this list remains unclear, but I immediately set about researching the songs to see whatI could figure out.

I quickly discovered that Cullen did not know the titles ofall these tunes, and in many cases he simply wrote down bits of lyrics.  I was surprised at first before realizing how very normal this seemed.  People nowadaysoften refer to songs by their most memorable lines rather than their actual titles, why should it have been any different during the Civil War?

From what I’ve been able to tell so far Cullen seemed especially fond of minstrel songs, ballads and Irish folk music.  I’ll leave you with one of his picks, a patriotic song titled “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean”:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siHfQGn3JTs