"This amazing music brings the past vividly to life with emotion, sensitivity, and grace. No one quite plays the piano like Jacqueline Schwab. Her pacing is unique, her artistry authentic and sustaining; this work is one of her best." --Ken Burns, filmmaker "An outstanding disc, every track filled with understanding, tenderness, creativity, and faithfulness to the lives and passions of the music's original performers." --Dean Root, director of the Center for American Music, University of Pittsburgh No conflict was as richly celebrated in song as the Civil War. Music spoke of glory and romance, of hope and freedom, of victory and defiance, of love and death. It stirred patriotic sentiments and inspired soldiers in battle--and made them long so deeply for home that commanders occasionally banned certain highly emotional songs in camp. We present here only a tiny fraction of the music published during the war--the best-loved classics, along with some of the more obscure pieces from the Library of Congress and other archives. In all cases, we drew on the original sheet music. There was so much to choose from. Songs poured from printing presses on both sides, even when ink became scarce, and paper in the South, as one historian put it, "was so thin as to be semi-transparent." Diaries, letters, and memoirs speak of the emotional impact of this music. Even today, these songs provide a window into the deep feelings surrounding the Civil War--as powerful in their own way as standing on windswept battlefields or reading the letters of soldiers far from home. On this recording, John Kirk from upstate New York sings songs of the Northern soldier, while Ridley Enslow draws on his family's roots in Georgia and South Carolina to represent the South. Linda Russell and I cover the ladies on the home front, as well as citizens favoring emancipation and an end to war. Though we made this CD to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War (the first shots of which were fired on April 12, 1861), we were struck how moving and strangely relevant these songs still seem today. Many of them express longing for home, for an end to conflict, and for the day, as one puts it, "when terror shall cease and our land be at peace, and war shall be heard of no more." --Anne Enslow For classrooms a teacher's guide can be found at our Web site. Search "Enslow music"