PICTORIAL FIELD BOOK OF THE REVOLUTION.
VOLUME II.
BY BENSON J. LOSSING
1850.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUPPLEMENT.
XIV.
YANKEE DOODLE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the first volume, I have twice referred to our national air, Yankee Doodle. The following facts in relation to its origin may interest the literary antiquarian. The air (Nancy Dawson), as well as the style of words, antedates the American Revolution by at least a century and a quarter. A song, composed in derision of Cromwell by a loyal poet, commenced with
"Nankey Doodle came to town,
A "doodle" is defined in the old English dictionaries to be "a sorry, trifling fellow," and the term was applied to Cromwell in that sense. A "macaroni" was a knot on which the feather was fastened. In a satirical poem accompanying a caricature of William Pitt in 1766, in which he appears on stilts, the following verse occurs:
"Stamp Act! le diable! dat is de job, sir;
Dat is in de Stiltman’s nob, sir,
To be America’s nabob, sir,
Long before our Revolution, the air was known in New England as "Lydia Fisher’s Jig;" and among other words was this verse:
"Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
A surgeon in the British army at Albany, in 1755, composed a song to that air, in derision of the uncouth appearance of the New England troops assembled there, and called it "Yankey" instead of "Nankey Doodle." The air was popular as martial music; and when, in 1768, British troops arrived in Boston harbor, "the Yankey Doodle tune," says a writer at that time, "was the capital piece in the band of music" at Castle William. The change in the spelling of Yankey was not made until after the Revolution. Trumbull, in his M‘Fingal, uses the original orthography. While the British were yet in Boston, after the arrival of Washington at Cambridge in 1775, some poet among them wrote the following piece, in derision of the New England people. This is the original Yankee Doodle Song of the Revolution:
"Father and I went down to camp,
------------------------------
ENDNOTES
NONE
----------------------------------------
Transcription and html prepared by Bill Carr, last updated 07/02/2001.
Please provide me with any feedback you may have concerning errors in the transcription or any supplementary information concerning the contents.
[email protected]Copyright Notice: Copyright 2001. All files on this site are copyrighted by their creator. They may be linked to but may not be reproduced on another site without the specific permission of their creator. Although public