Kathleen Mavourneen - a popular Civil War song, from the Gettysburg soun...

One of the best known ballads of the nineteenth century it was popularized by the Irish singer Catherine Hayes and became something of a standard after she sang it for Queen Victory in 1849. Much of the detail about it is given in the video above and its association with the American Civil War can be traced back to the memoirs of Almira Hancock and a dinner party in the early summer of 1861 in Los Angeles, California. Told also in Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Killer Angels, Brigadier General Lewis A. Armisted at the home of his best friend, Union Major General Winfield Scott sang the song with Hancock and his wife Almira before returning to fight for the Confederacy. Also present at the party were two other Confederate generals, Albert Sidney Johnson and Richard Garnett and it is said Johnson's wife sang the song. One for the historians! Johnson would die at Shiloh, Garnett and Armisted as part of Pickett's charge on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg. They were attacking Hancock's position, and Hancock himself would be seriously wounded as a result of the charge. Mavourneen is a term of endearment in Gaelic. With thanks to "Chatham 62" who posted and youtube. The battle of Gettysburg began on the 1st of July 1863.