Oh we'll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree

{{short description|Politically significant American song lyric}}

File:A Yankee Song.jpg, December 23, 1862)]]

"Oh we'll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree" (and similar) is a variant of the American folk song "John Brown's Body" that was sung by the United States military, Unionist civilians, and freedmen during and after the American Civil War.{{Cite book |last=Finseth |first=Ian Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V2VrUlx80wIC&pg=PA336 |title=The American Civil War: An Anthology of Essential Writings |date=2006 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-0-415-97744-9 |pages=336 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Kobbé |first=Gustav |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OKUNAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22Hang+Jeff+Davis%22+%22sour+apple+tree%22&pg=PA158 |title=Famous American Songs |date=1906 |publisher=T.Y. Crowell |pages=158 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last1=French |first1=Justus Clement |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aORCAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22Hang+Jeff+Davis%22+%22sour+apple+tree%22&pg=PA91 |title=The Trip of the Steamer Oceanus to Fort Sumter and Charleston, S. C.: Comprising the ... Programme of Exercises at the Re-raising of the Flag Over the Ruins of Fort Sumter, April 14th, 1865 |last2=Cary |first2=Edward |date=1865 |publisher="The Union" Steam Printing House |pages=90–91 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Kent |first=Charles Nelson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OyxCAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22Hang+Jeff+Davis%22+%22sour+apple+tree%22&pg=PA314 |title=History of the Seventeenth Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry. 1862-1863 |date=1898 |publisher=By order of the Seventeenth New Hampshire veteran association |language=en}} The phrase and associated imagery became relevant to the post-war legal issues surrounding the potential prosecution of former Confederate politicians and officers; the lyric was sometimes referenced in political cartoons and artworks of the time, and in political debates continuing well into the post-Reconstruction era.{{Cite web |title=Jeff. D hung on a "sour apple tree" or treason made odious |url=https://www.loc.gov/resource/pga.09194/ |access-date=2023-12-07 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA|date=January 1867 }}{{Cite web |title=Hang him on the sour apple tree |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/2023783193/ |access-date=2023-12-07 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}}{{Cite web |title=John Brown exhibiting his hangman |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/2008661690/ |access-date=2023-12-07 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA|date=January 1865 }}{{Cite news |date=1886-06-10 |title=A Memory of the Past |pages=2 |work=Ellsworth Reporter |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/ellsworth-reporter-a-memory-of-the-past/136438625/ |access-date=2023-12-07}}

History

Jeff Davis and the sour apple tree appear in print as early as August 1861.{{Cite news |date=1861-08-22 |title=Massachusetts has another new regiment... |pages=2 |work=Fayetteville Semi-Weekly Observer |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/fayetteville-semi-weekly-observer-massac/136447907/ |access-date=2023-12-07}} In 1880, a U.S. Army veteran claimed credit for first singing the lyric in spring 1862 in Virginia, having taken inspiration from a prior song about a "sick monkey in a sour apple tree."{{Cite news |date=1885-08-06 |title=Jeff Davis on a Sour Apple Tree: How the Famous Song Had Its Origin in the Army |pages=3 |work=Wood County Reporter |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/wood-county-reporter-jeff-davis-on-a-sou/136437642/ |access-date=2023-12-07}} In 1947 a survivor of American slavery named Perry Vaughn recalled, "I fought in Abe Lincoln's army and played the bass horn in the Army band. I can still remember, like it was yesterday, playing 'We'll Hang Jeff Davis on a Sour Apple Tree.'"{{Cite news |date=1947-08-03 |title=Madison's 3 Surviving Ex-Slaves Total 288 Years |pages=1 |work=The Capital Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-capital-times-madisons-3-surviving/129743249/ |access-date=2023-08-10}} & {{Cite news |date=1947-08-03 |title=Bondage Years Still Vivid to Ex-Slaves Here |pages=10 |work=The Capital Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-capital-times-bondage-years-still-vi/129746616/ |access-date=2023-08-10}}

A less bloodthirsty variant was "We'll feed Jeff Davis sour apples 'til he gets the diarhee."{{Cite web |last=Coates |first=Ta-Nehisi |date=2011-09-08 |title=The Glory of the Coming of the Lord |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/09/the-glory-of-the-coming-of-the-lord/244764/ |access-date=2023-12-07 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}}

Richard Wright's 1938 novella Big Boy Leaves Home references a white-supremacist variant: "We'll hang ever nigger t a sour apple tree."{{Cite book |last=Carpio |first=Glenda |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b7-GDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Hang+Jeff+Davis%22+%22sour+apple+tree%22&pg=PA77 |title=The Cambridge Companion to Richard Wright |date=2019-03-21 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-47517-4 |pages=77 |language=en}}

Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, died of natural causes in 1889.{{Cite web |title=U.S. Senate: Jefferson Davis: A Featured Biography |url=https://www.senate.gov/senators/FeaturedBios/Featured_Bio_DavisJefferson.htm |access-date=2023-12-07 |website=www.senate.gov}}

Gallery

File:The Sour Apple Tree, or Jeff Davis' Last Ditch - Mdp.39015096693281-seq 1.jpg|Cover for a spin-off "The Sour Apple Tree, or Jeff Davis' Last Ditch" depicts Davis in a dress, a common image after the end of the war, as when he was captured he was reportedly wearing a woman's cloak (Edison Collection of American Sheet Music at University of Michigan via HathiTrust)

File:Freedoms_Immortal_Triumph_Cartoon_American_Civil_War_cropped_adjusted_01.png|This 1865 American political cartoon entitled "Freedom's Immortal Triumph" featured the imagery from the song (Library of Congress cph.3b35188)

File:Panel from Andy's Trip by Thomas Nast - Harper's Weekly - October 27 1866 01.jpg|Hecklers on Andrew Johnson's Swing Around the Circle tour called upon him to hang Jeff Davis; he asked them to consider hanging Wendell Phillips and Thaddeus Stevens instead (Panel from Andy's Trip by Thomas Nast, Harper's Weekly, October 27, 1866)

File:Jeff. D hung on a "sour apple tree" or treason made odious LCCN2003674561.jpg|This political cartoon references the song lyric, and one of Andrew Johnson's stump-speech stock phrases ("treason must made odious"),{{Cite web |date=June 16, 1864 |title=OUR NEXT VICE-PRESIDENT. Speech of Gov. Johnson at Nashville. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1864/06/16/archives/our-next-vicepresident-speech-of-gov-johnson-at-nashville.html?unlocked_article_code=1.EE0.xQFO.hNKd_DozLNVq&smid=url-share |website=NY Times}}{{Cite book |last=Maslowski |first=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pfITAAAAYAAJ |title=Treason Must be Made Odious: Military Occupation and Wartime Reconstruction in Nashville, Tennessee, 1862-65 |date=1978 |publisher=KTO Press |isbn=978-0-527-62185-8 |language=en}} in its critique of Horace Greeley's support for releasing Davis from Fort Monroe (Library of Congress LC-DIG-pga-09194)

File:"White_Front_Shoe_Store_advertisement",_The_Dayton_Herald,_February_6,_1888.jpg|"White Front Shoe Store advertisement" (The Dayton Herald, Dayton, Ohio, February 6, 1888)

Oh we'll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree

History

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading