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Battle of Manassas (1861)
Battle of Manassas was written by Thomas Wiggins (aka "Blind Tom") at the age of 12. It is a programmatic work which describes the first major battle of the Civil War. As with many of his compositions, Wiggins introduced the work in the third person, from his manager's perspective:
"Tom will now play for you his Battle of Manassas. This is a piece of his own conception of a battle.
"The circumstances under which he produced it were these: soon after the battle occurred, I happened to a very serious accident which kept me in Nashville [Tennessee] for several months. Tom was often in my room. Every little paragraph about the battle was discussed in various forms for a week or more. He heard this thing read of and talked of, and after hearing it for ten days he took his seat at the piano and produced what he will now play for you; and when asked what that was he was playing, his reply was, that it was his Battle of Manassas.
"In the first place he will represent the Southern Army leaving home to their favorite tune of 'The Girl I Left Behind Me,' which you will hear in the distance, growing louder and louder as they approach Manassas (the imitation of the drum and fife). He will represent the Grand Union Army leaving Washington [DC] to the tune of 'Dixie.' You will all recollect that their papers, and our papers, and their prisoners, spoke of the fact that when the Grand Union Army left Washington, not only their bands were playing 'Dixie,' but their men were also singing it.
"He will represent the eve of battle by a very soft sweet melody, then the clatter of arms and accoutrements, the war trumpet of [General P. G. T.] Beauregard, which you will hear distinctly; and then [General Irvin] McDowell's in the distance, like an echo of the first. He will represent the firing of the cannon to 'Yankee Doodle,' Marseillaise Hymn, Star-Spangled Banner, 'Dixie,' and the arrival of the train of cars containing General Kirby Smith's reinforcements; which you will all recollect was very valuable to General Beauregard upon that occasion, after the arrival of which the fighting will grow more severe, and then the retreat."
Thomas Wiggins (1849-1908), aka "Blind Tom" Bethune, was one of the most famous performers of the mid- to late-19th century United States. A slave owned by the Bethune family of Georgia, he was considered an idiot savant and toured as a pianist and vaudeville act throughout the US, Canada, Europe, and South America. One letter from 1862 by a soldier in North Carolina described Wiggins and his performance:
"He learned to play the piano from hearing others, learns airs and tunes from hearing them sung, and can play any piece on first trial as well as the most accomplished performer ... One of his most remarkable feats was the performance of three pieces of music at once. He played 'Fisher's Hornpipe' with one hand and 'Yankee Doodle' with the other and sang 'Dixie' all at once. He also played a piece with his back to the piano and his hands inverted. [...]"
Wiggins' unusual social behavior and remarkable musical abilities are currently understood as characteristics of autism.
Born in Columbus, Georgia, Wiggins and his parents were bought as slaves in 1850 by prominent lawyer and anti-abolitionist newspaper editor James N. Bethune. Blind from birth, Wiggins was a musical prodigy who mimicked sounds at an early age and began to compose and improvise when he was six. He received piano lessons from Bethune's daughter Mary and a number of local instructors. In 1857 Bethune exhibited Wiggins across Georgia, where he became something of a sensation. The slave owner then hired out "Blind Tom" to concert promoter Perry Oliver, who toured him extensively in the US, performing as often as four times a day and earning Oliver and Bethune up to $100,000 a year, an enormous sum for the time. Wiggins' recitals included a wide range of European classical music, popular songs of the day, and some of his over 100 compositions, all played from memory. In 1860 he was summoned to Washington, DC to perform before President James Buchanan.
During the Civil War, the Bethune family continued to tour Wiggins throughout the South to perform and raise funds for the Confederacy and its army. Before the war's end Bethune persuaded Wiggins' parents to sign a contract making him guardian of their son for another five years. The two then toured major cities of the northern United States. In 1865 a dispute between Bethune and entertainment promoter Tabbs Gross led to a nationally-publicized guardianship trial over the pianist in Cincinnati, Ohio, which Bethune eventually won. Bethune then took Wiggins to perform in Europe, where he received praise from well-known pianists Ignaz Moscheles and Charles Hallé.
Upon their return Wiggins continued to perform throughout the US and Canada and spent summers at the Bethune family estate outside of Warrenton, Virginia. Bethune maintained guardianship of Wiggins by requesting that the courts declare him legally incompetent and name Bethune's son John his new guardian. Wiggins and John Bethune moved to New York City in 1875, where the pianist studied occasionally with Joseph Poznanski. After the accidental death of Bethune's son in 1884, his widow Eliza went to court to gain custody of Wiggins, finally succeeding three years later. He continued to tour for Eliza, and gave his last performances in 1904. Wiggins lived the rest of his life at her home in Hoboken, New Jersey.
related websites
http://www.twainquotes.com/archangels.html
John Davis is known for his presentations of the life and music of the slave pianist/composer Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins and a wide-ranging piano repertoire rooted in African-American music of the Deep South. Davis' work with "Blind Tom" began with a 1998 one-man multimedia theatrical concert Will the Real Thomas Wiggins Please Stand Up! and a recording for the Newport Classic label. His research and performances have since been featured on many radio and television broadcasts and in newspapers and magazines such as The New Yorker and Scientific American. He has written articles on "Blind Tom" for several Oxford University Press books, most recently African American Lives (2004). Outside of his work with "Blind Tom," Davis has performed solo piano recitals across the United States, toured Asia and Eastern Europe by invitation of the US State Department, and presented another theatrically-driven program entitled The John Davis Caravan: Standing at the Crossroads. Davis studied at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and Juilliard School of Music in New York City. His teachers included Seth Carlin, Gabriel Chodos, Herbert Stessin, Aube Tzerko, and Beveridge Webster.
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