"Dixie" is a song with music and lyrics by the Northerner Daniel Decatur Emmett (included in the Artists, Movements and Ideas section of the Song of America database.) His song was first performed in a minstrel show in New York City in 1859, but it soon swept the South, and when Confederate President Jefferson Davis took the oath of office in 1861, the band played “Dixie.” Southern troops marched into battle singing the song, and it lifted the spirits of the pro-slavery South for all the years of the war. The composer, who supported the Union, is reported to have said, “If I had known to what use they were going to put my song, I’ll be damned if I’d have written it.”
--Sheila Gaffney
Dixie (I Wish I Was in Dixie)
I wish I was in the land of cotton,
Old times they are not forgotten;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land where I was born,
Early on one frosty mornin,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Then I wish I was in Dixie, hooray! hooray!
In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand to live and die in Dixie,
Away, away, away down South in Dixie,
Away, away, away down South in Dixie.
