"The Contraband Schottische" Musical Score

Collection

Identifier: MSS-5034

No requestable containers

Scope and Contents

This collection contains the musical score for "The Contraband Schottische," a dance composed by Septimus Winner, a popular nineteenth-century songwriter. The cover of the piece contains an illustration of a slaveholder with a whip. The slaveholder is shaking his fist at enslaved men, who are tumbling down a set of stairs and depicted as childlike. The piece is dedicated to Benjamin Butler, the Union General who declared enslaved people "contrabands of war" when they ran to his lines. Enslaved persons' status as "contrabands" enabled federal military leaders to confiscate their labor for the Union Army and refuse Confederate slaveholders who demanded their return.

Dates

Creation: 1861

Creator

Winner, Septimus, 1827-1902 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research. Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection. Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Due to the nature of certain archival formats, including digital and audio-visual materials, access to certain materials may require additional advance notice.

Conditions Governing Use

Researchers are responsible for using the materials in conformance with United States copyright law as well as any donor restrictions accompanying the materials. The user assumes all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any copyright claimants in collection materials. Copyright for official University records is held by The University of Alabama. The library claims only physical ownership of many manuscript collections. Anyone wishing to broadcast or publish this material must assume all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any claimants of literary property rights or copyrights. Please contact Special Collections (archives@ua.edu) with questions regarding specific manuscript collections.

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Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals without the consent of those individuals may have legal implications, for which the University of Alabama assumes no responsibility.

Biographical / Historical

Septimus Winner (1827-1902) was a nineteenth-century songwriter and music store owner, who was largely self taught. Composing under his own name and several synonyms, Winner became an established instrument instructor and performer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He published music with many individuals during his lifetime, including his brother Joseph. Winner was well known for his ballads, which he frequently wrote as "Alice Hawthorne," a name that referenced his mother, Mary Ann, a poet and relative of Nathaniel Hawthorne. One of these ballads, "Listen to a Mockingbird," sold between fifteen and twenty million copies.

During the U.S. Civil War, Winner not only wrote "The Contraband Schottische," but also "Give Us Back Our Old Commander: Little Mac, the People's Pride." The latter song resulted in Winner's court-maritial and a brief jailing. His legal troubles were due to the song's "treasonous" nature since it was published in 1862, shortly after President Abraham Lincoln fired Union General George B. McClellan, who was referenced in its title. Although Winner was released after agreeing to destroy the remaining copies of the song, General McClellan was popular and 80,000 copies had already been sold within a few days of its release. "Give Us Back Our Old Commander" resurfaced when McClellan ran for president in 1864 and again with new lyrics in 1880, when President Ulysses Grant ran for a third term.