{"id":5003,"date":"2022-04-12T05:06:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T05:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/?p=5003"},"modified":"2026-02-10T19:26:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T19:26:26","slug":"just-before-the-battle-mother-a-bit-of-music-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/events-general-interest\/just-before-the-battle-mother-a-bit-of-music-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Before the Battle, Mother &#8211; A Bit of Music History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Today, April 12, 1861 was the beginning of the American Civil War. Here at the Recorded Sound Archives as a bit of music history we wanted to share a piano roll of a song from that time period &#8220;Just before the Battle, Mother&#8221; which was a popular song during the American Civil War, particularly among troops in the Union Army. It was originally written and published by George F. Root in 1863. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Enjoy the video below of Ben Roth, Sound Archivist for the Recorded Sound Archives as he plays a piano roll featuring this song. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ben Roth Shares Piano Roll Just Before the Battle, Mother - A Bit of Music History from the RSA\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6TyYhKVeR6g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">You can listen to a recorded version of this song by J.W. Myers from 1904 on the Recorded Sound Archives website. Click here to listen: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/redirect?event=video_description&amp;redir_token=QUFFLUhqbW5qVThmNHlPWkxMVHJPN0UxcTdhUEN0dXVQUXxBQ3Jtc0ttWkFoV0FPMHJYM1VBVktmTzJYdG9mTU1pNGpKZ0tEQkVPc09WdVN4b05iNDVFR3NMNnRLR3RpQ3A1VWpKbkpBWTdCcWpQeHd4UHhtTF8wQkk5MW9tVC1jUHZycVpvdmNfaHBMZmpTWHd3a25UUXh4OA&amp;q=https%3A%2F%2Frsa.fau.edu%2Falbum%2F57570\">https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/album\/57570<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, April 12, 1861 was the beginning of the American Civil War. Here at the Recorded Sound Archives as a bit of music history we wanted to share a piano roll of a song from that time period &#8220;Just before the Battle, Mother&#8221; which was a popular song during the American Civil War, particularly among [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[832,833,826],"class_list":["post-5003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events-general-interest","tag-j-w-myers","tag-just-before-the-battle-mother","tag-piano-roll"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Just Before the Battle, Mother - A Bit of Music History - Recorded Sound Archives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Discover the story behind \u201cJust Before the Battle, Mother\u201d with historic Civil War recordings from the Recorded Sound Archives and learn its musical legacy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/events-general-interest\/just-before-the-battle-mother-a-bit-of-music-history\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Just Before the Battle, Mother - A Bit of Music History - Recorded Sound Archives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Discover the story behind \u201cJust Before the Battle, Mother\u201d with historic Civil War recordings from the Recorded Sound Archives and learn its musical legacy.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/events-general-interest\/just-before-the-battle-mother-a-bit-of-music-history\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Recorded Sound Archives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-04-12T05:06:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-10T19:26:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Recorded Sound Archives\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Recorded Sound Archives\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/events-general-interest\/just-before-the-battle-mother-a-bit-of-music-history\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/events-general-interest\/just-before-the-battle-mother-a-bit-of-music-history\/\",\"name\":\"Just Before the Battle, Mother - A Bit of Music History - Recorded Sound Archives\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-04-12T05:06:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-10T19:26:26+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/294be88a20add4af24b618d63b9f59d7\"},\"description\":\"Discover the story behind \u201cJust Before the Battle, Mother\u201d with historic Civil War recordings from the Recorded Sound Archives and learn its musical legacy.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/events-general-interest\/just-before-the-battle-mother-a-bit-of-music-history\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/events-general-interest\/just-before-the-battle-mother-a-bit-of-music-history\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/events-general-interest\/just-before-the-battle-mother-a-bit-of-music-history\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Just Before the Battle, Mother &#8211; 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