"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.[3][4][5][6] 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.[7][8][9][10]
History
Jeff Davis and the sour apple tree appear in print as early as August 1861.[11] 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."[12] A Civil War-era pieced-quilt block pattern called Apple Tree probably references the song lyric.[13] 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.'"[14]
A less bloodthirsty variant was "We'll feed Jeff Davis sour apples 'til he gets the diarhee."[15]
Richard Wright's 1938 novella Big Boy Leaves Home references a later-developed white supremacist response: "We'll hang ever nigger t a sour apple tree."[16]
Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, died of natural causes in 1889.[17]
See also
References
Further reading
- Kirk, Brianna (April 1, 2013). "Jeff Davis, a Sour Apple Tree, and Treason: A Case Study of Fear in the Post-Civil War Era". Student Publications (Cupola.gettysburg.edu).
- Lepore, Jill (December 4, 2023). "What Happened When the U.S. Failed to Prosecute an Insurrectionist Ex-President". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X.(subscription required)
- Moseley, Caroline (Autumn 1984). ""When Will Dis Cruel War be Ober?" Attitudes toward Blacks in Popular Song of the Civil War". American Music. 2 (3): 1–26. doi:10.2307/3052003. JSTOR 3052003.