Tag: Civil War

I’ll Meet You at the Station

May 25, 2020 / C R Burgan

“Take the last train to Clarksville
And I’ll meet you at the station
You can be there by 4:30
‘Cause I’ve made your reservation
Don’t be slow
Oh, no, no, no . . .” – Last Train to Clarksville (Boyce/Hart) © Sony/ATV Music

Clarksville is the county seat of Montgomery County, Tennessee. It is the fifth-largest city in the state, with an estimated population of 153,205 in 2017. The city was founded in 1785, incorporated in 1807, and named for General George Rogers Clark, frontier fighter and Revolutionary War hero, and brother of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Clarksville was designated as a town to be settled by soldiers from the disbanded Continental Army that served under General Washington during the Revolutionary War. At the end of the war, with the federal government lacking sufficient funds to repay the soldiers, the Legislature of North Carolina, designated the lands to the west of the state line as federal lands that could be used in the land grant program. As the area of Clarksville had been surveyed and sectioned into plots, the land was available to be settled by the families of eligible soldiers as repayment for service to their country.

Since its inception, the city of Clarksville has had close ties to the military. The city was developed by former Revolutionary War soldiers; during the Civil War a large number of its male population was depleted due to Union Army victories, with many Clarksville men interned at Union prisoner of war camps; Clarksville lost many men in World War I, and World War II saw the formation of Camp Campbell, later Fort Campbell, not far from the city center.

“’Cause I’m leaving in the morning
And I must see you again
We’ll have one more night together
‘Til the morning brings my train
And I must go
Oh, no, no, no . . .” – Last Train to Clarksville (Boyce/Hart)

Fort Campbell is a United States Army base that spans the Kentucky–Tennessee state line. It is located approximately 10 miles from the city center of Clarksville. Though the installation’s post office is in Kentucky, most of its acreage lies in Tennessee. The fort is named in honor of Union Army Brigadier General William Bowen Campbell, a former governor of Tennessee, and is home to the 101st Airborne Division and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

The site for Fort Campbell was selected in July of 1941, with the initial survey completed in November of that same year, about the same time the Japanese Imperial Fleet was leaving Japanese home waters for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Soldiers from Fort Campbell, Kentucky have deployed in every military campaign since the formation of the post.

The first 4,000 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division arrived in Vietnam in July of 1965, landing at Cam Ranh Bay. Immediately after their arrival, they made a demonstration jump which was observed by Geneneral William Westmoreland and outgoing Ambassador (formerly General) Maxwell Taylor. Taylor and Westmoreland were both former commanders of the division, which was known as the “Screaming Eagles.” The remainder of the 101st would soon be deployed to Vietnam from Fort Campbell.

101st Airborne Division, “Screaming Eagles”

In May of 1966, due to the escalation of action in Vietnam, a Basic Combat Training Center was activated at Fort Campbell. Just weeks later the base received its first 220 newly inducted soldiers.

Side note #1:

In 1961, after a run-in with the law over stolen cars, young James Marshall Hendrix was given the choice to spend two years in prison or join the army. Choosing the army, Pvt. Hendrix was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and was stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. It was not long before Jimi proved himself wholly unsuited for military life, and although he had signed up for three years, Captain Gilbert Batchman had had enough after one year, and made the case for Hendrix to be discharged, as his problems were judged to not be treatable by “hospitalization or counseling.”

Pvt James Hendrix @ Ft. Campbell
Pvt Hendrix

“Take the last train to Clarksville
I’ll be waiting at the station
We’ll have time for coffee–flavored kisses
And a bit of conversation, oh
Oh, no, no, no . . .” – Last Train to Clarksville (Boyce/Hart)

As early as 1962, filmmaker Bob Rafelson had developed the idea for The Monkees, but was unable to sell the series. Later he teamed-up with Bert Schneider, whose father was the head of Screen Gems, the television unit of Columbia Pictures, and after seeing the success of The Beatles’ film, A Hard Day’s Night, the pair revived Rafelson’s idea of a show built around an aspiring rock band, and were successful in selling the series to Screen Gems Television.

Rafelson and Schneider’s original idea was to cast an existing New York folk rock group, The Lovin’ Spoonful, who were not widely known at the time. But John Sebastian had already signed the band to a record contract, which would have left Screen Gems unable to market music from the show. The idea then shifted to having actors portray the four band members, and while each of the four actors who were chosen to portray the The Monkees had some musical experience, it would initially be left to outside songwriters and musicians to provide the show’s musical soundtrack.

With The Monkees picked up as a series, Columbia-Screen Gems and RCA Victor entered into a joint venture called Colgems Records to distribute the show’s musical releases. Don Kirshner, Screen Gems’ head of music, was contacted to secure music for the show’s pilot. Kirshner would eventually enlist the talents of Neil Diamond, John Stewart, Carole King, and the duo of Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart, among others, to pen what would become the show’s familiar hits.

Neil Diamond
John Stewart
Carole King

“Take the last train to Clarksville
Now I must hang up the phone
I can’t hear you in this
Noisy railroad station
All alone, I’m feeling low
Oh, no, no, no . . .” – Last Train to Clarksville (Boyce/Hart)

“Last Train to Clarksville” was the show’s first single and first worldwide hit. The song was recorded in July of 1966, and released in August, just a few weeks prior to The Monkees September 12 broadcast debut on the NBC television network. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 in November of 1966, and would later rank #6 for the year. It was featured in seven episodes of the band’s television series, the most for any Monkees song.

Written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, the song bears a striking resemblance to The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer”, which is the song that Hart claims inspired him to write “Last Train”. Hart has stated that having turned on the radio to hear the final bars of “Paperback Writer” he believed that Paul McCartney was singing “Take the last train”. Learning that McCartney was actually singing “Paperback writer”, he decided to use the line for his own song.

Knowing that The Monkees TV series was being pitched as a music/comedy series in the spirit of The Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night, Boyce & Hart set out to emulate the Fab Four as they recorded “Last Train to Clarksville” with their own band, Candy Store Prophets. Actor Mickey Dolenz later added his lead vocal track to the original recording.

About the title of the song Hart has explained, “We were just looking for a name that sounded good. There’s a little town in northern Arizona I used to go through in the summer on the way to Oak Creek Canyon called Clarkdale. We were throwing out names, and when we got to Clarkdale, we thought Clarksville sounded even better. We didn’t know it at the time, [but] there is an Army base near the town of Clarksville, Tennessee — which would have fit the bill fine for the storyline. We couldn’t be too direct with The Monkees. We couldn’t really make a protest song out of it — we kind of snuck it in.”

Side note #2:

In 1967, as The Monkees were about to embark on a US tour, Mickey Dolenz recommended hiring Jimi Hendrix to be their opening act, having recently witnessed his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Hendrix had characterized The Monkees’ music as “dishwater”, but his manager convinced him to sign on for the tour, for although he’d already had three hit singles in England, he was virtually unknown in the US. The Jimi Hendrix Experience played just eight of the 29 scheduled tour dates; then, on July 16, 1967, Jimi flipped the Forest Hills, Queens, New York, audience off, threw down his guitar and walked away from the tour.

“Take the last train to Clarksville,
And I’ll meet you at the station,
You can be here by four-thirty,
‘Cause I’ve made your reservation, don’t be slow,
Oh, no, no, no . . .

And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home” – Last Train to Clarksville (Boyce/Hart)

The 101st Airborne was the last Army division to leave Vietnam, returning to its home base of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. During the war, troopers from the 101st won 17 Medals of Honor for bravery in combat. The division suffered almost 20,000 soldiers killed or wounded in action in Vietnam, over twice as many as the 9,328 casualties it suffered in World War II.

Never Forget!

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarksville,_Tennessee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Campbell

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/101st-airborne-division-arrives-in-vietnam

https://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/career-advice/military-transition/famous-veterans-jimi-hendrix.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Train_to_Clarksville

https://www.rhino.com/article/single-stories-the-monkees-last-train-to-clarksville

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-monkees/last-train-to-clarksville

All photos sourced through internet searches, none belong to the author.

Pardon Me, Boy

April 27, 2020 / C R Burgan

“Pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo?
Track twenty nine, boy you can gimme a shine
I can afford to board a Chattanooga Choo Choo
I’ve got my fare and just a trifle to spare” – Chattanooga Choo Choo (Gordon/Warren) © Sony/ATV Music

The earliest inhabitants of the Chattanooga, Tennessee area were the Native Americans, with Cherokee occupation of the region dating from 1776. John Ross, who eventually became Principal Chief, established Ross’s Landing in 1816, located along what is now Broad Street. It would become a primary center for the Cherokee Nation, which extended into Georgia and Alabama.

In 1838 the U.S. government forced the Cherokee people, along with other Native American tribes, to relocate to the area designated as Indian Territory. The following year the community of Ross’s Landing would be incorporated as the city of Chattanooga.

Being ideally suited for waterborne commerce due to its situation beside the Tennessee River, the city quickly grew. When the railroad arrived in 1850, Chattanooga became a boomtown. The city’s location, where the fertile cotton growing lowlands of the Deep South meet the mountainous region of southern Appalachia, made it a natural gateway between north and south. This distinction would cause Chattanooga to see plenty of action during the American Civil War, when the city proved to be a transportation hub connecting half of the Confederacy’s arsenals.

The First Battle of Chattanooga was fought June 7-8, 1862. It was a minor artillery battle, precipitated when Maj. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel ordered Brig. Gen. James Negley, who commanded a small division, to lead an expedition to capture Chattanooga. The Union artillery shelled the city for a day and a half before withdrawing, and although the Confederate losses were minor, it served as a warning that the Union forces could attack deep within the enemy territory at will.

The Second Battle of Chattanooga began on August 21, 1863, when Col. John T. Wilder’s brigade marched to a location northeast of Chattanooga and ordered the 18th Indiana Light Artillery to begin shelling the town. Soldiers and civilians were caught off guard as many were in church observing a day of prayer and fasting. The shelling continued periodically over the next two weeks, allowing the Union army to surround the city to the south and west.

In the fall of that same year, Union forces withdrew to the city of Chattanooga after the Confederate victory at Chickamauga in September. The Confederate Army under Gen. Braxton Bragg quickly laid siege, cutting off the Federals’ supply lines. After being ordered by President Abraham Lincoln to end the siege at Chattanooga, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant opened the “Cracker Line” across the Tennessee River, allowing the Army of the Cumberland inside the city to be resupplied. In mid-November, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee arrived in the city, as well.

From November 23 to November 25, 1863, Union forces fought Confederate troops at the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. The Union victories at these locations drove the rebels back into Georgia. The siege was broken, and the path clear for Gen. Sherman’s march to Atlanta, and ultimately on to Savannah. The vital railroad hub of Chattanooga was securely in Union control and would remain so for the duration of the war.

“You leave the Pennsylvania station ’bout a quarter to four
Read a magazine and then you’re in Baltimore
Dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer
Than to have your ham ‘n’ eggs in Carolina” – Chattanooga Choo Choo (Gordon/Warren)

The reconstruction period following the Civil War found the city of Chattanooga retaining its prominence as a commercial hub, and as the “Gateway to the South”. The post-war decades found railroads rapidly expanding across the country, with the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, desiring a rail link to Southern cities & ports. In order to overcome legal obstacles, the Cincinnati Southern Railway was built with municipal funds and continues to be city-owned to this day, although the city leases its use to Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway (CNO&TP), which is a subsidiary of Norfolk Southern.

On May 8, 1880, the first passenger train made the 337 mile trip from Cincinnati to Chattanooga, and the Chattanooga Choo Choo was born. Although the railroad never officially operated a train bearing that name, the “Choo Choo” moniker referred to a small wood burning 2-6-0 type locomotive, which was operated by the Cincinnati Southern, and is now a museum piece.

“When you hear the whistle blowin’ eight to the bar
Then you know that Tennessee is not very far
Shovel all the coal in, gotta keep it rollin’
Woo, woo, Chattanooga, there you are” – Chattanooga Choo Choo (Gordon/Warren)

The Birmingham Special was a passenger train operated jointly by the Southern Railway, Norfolk and Western Railway, and Pennsylvania Railroad. While making a journey upon this train, songwriters Mack Gordon & Harry Warren wrote their hit song, “Chattanooga Choo Choo”. In 1932 the Birmingham Special had been rerouted to include Chattanooga as a stop along its path from Pennsylvania Station in New York City, to Birmingham, Alabama. Although Pennsylvania Station never had a track 29, as the song states, Southern Railway designated the train as #29 in the southbound direction. Along with other references within the song’s lyrics, it’s apparent that the authors were exercising a degree of imagination & artistic license.

On May 7, 1941, Glenn Miller and his Orchestra recorded “Chattanooga Choo Choo” in Hollywood, California, as an extended production number for the 20th Century Fox film Sun Valley Serenade. Several months later it was released on RCA Victor’s Bluebird label as the B-side of a 78 rpm phonograph disc. Featuring the vocals of Tex Beneke, Paula Kelley, and the Modernaires, the song reached #1 on the Billboard Best Sellers chart on December 7, 1941, where it remained for nine weeks. In February 1942 the release was the first to be a certified gold record for sales of 1.2 million units. The song was also nominated for an Academy Award for its appearance in the film. The song’s huge success was deemed to be remarkable considering the fact that due to the ASCAP boycott the song had not been heard on the radio during 1941.

In the decades following Glenn Miller’s iconic recording the song has been recorded by dozens of artists, including: Beegie Adair, the Andrews Sisters, Ray Anthony, Asleep at the Wheel, BBC Big Band, George Benson, Regina Carter, Ray Charles, Harry Connick, Jr., Ray Conniff, John Denver, Ernie Fields, Stéphane Grappelli, Susannah McCorkle, Oscar Peterson, Hank Snow, Cab Calloway, Carmen Miranda, Floyd Cramer, Bill Haley and His Comets, Barry Manilow, Herb Alpert, Steve Lucky & the Rhumba Bums, and The Muppets. The song has also been featured in numerous movies and TV shows.

In 1996, Glenn Miller’s original 1941 recording of “Chattanooga Choo Choo” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

As with many of the songs that I have featured in this blog I gleaned a few new details while researching this recording with which I had felt quite familiar. Learning that the song reached the #1 position on the Billboard charts on what we now call Pearl Harbor Day caused me to reflect on what it meant to folks at the time. The fact that it stayed at #1 for nine weeks tells me that the song was in some way a medicine that helped a grieving population heal from tremendous wounds.

“There’s gonna be a certain party at the station
Satin and lace, I used to call funny face
She’s gonna cry until I tell her that I’ll never roam
So Chattanooga choo choo
Won’t you choo-choo me home?” – Chattanooga Choo Choo (Gordon/Warren)

Sources:

https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/battle-of-chattanooga

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/chattanooga

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chattanoogahttps:

//www.nps.gov/chch/learn/historyculture/battles-for-chattanooga.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chattanooga,_Tennessee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chattanooga_Choo_Choo

https://www.american-rails.com/chattanooga.html

All photos sourced through internet searches, unless otherwise noted.

You Can’t Cheat Mother Nature

February 17, 2020 / C R Burgan

“In an era of dissension
On a bleak mid-winter morn
There stood a house divided
By righteous indignation borne” – Chunky Creek (Train Wreck of 1863) © C. R. Burgan, Jr. / BMI

The winter of 1862 – 63 saw a number of attempts by the Union army to wrest control of the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi from the Confederates. The city had become a fortress for the Confederate States, allowing the South to control the southern portion of the Mississippi River, as far as Port Hudson, in Louisiana. The city’s natural riverside defenses were perfect, earning it the nickname, “The Gibraltar of the Confederacy”. Located high on a bluff overlooking a horseshoe-shaped bend in the river, Vicksburg was almost impossible to approach by ship.

With the city of Memphis having fallen to Union forces the previous summer, the strategic importance of maintaining control of the lower Mississippi River could not be overstated. President Jefferson Davis had declared, “Vicksburg is the nail head that holds the South’s two halves together.”

Jefferson Davis
President Lincoln with troops

The Union also understood the significance that control of the Mississippi represented to the Confederacy in maintaining a supply line with their states on the western side of the river. In Washington President Abraham Lincoln had written, “Vicksburg is the key. …The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket”.

Vicksburg had been under Union attack previously, when in the spring of 1862 Admiral David Farragut traveled upriver after his capture of New Orleans. Demanding the surrender of the city, but lacking sufficient troops to force compliance, he returned to New Orleans. Likewise Union naval attacks arriving from the north had also failed due to the gunboats being unable to approach the city while remaining out of reach of Confederate gun emplacements upon the bluff.

Realizing the impregnable nature of the city’s riverside defenses, the Union soon commenced an overland campaign to attack Vicksburg from the east.

General Ulysses S Grant, US Army
General John C Pemberton, Confederate Army

Defending the city of Vicksburg, Lt. General John C. Pemberton commanded what historian John D. Winters described as “a beaten and demoralized army, fresh from the defeat at Corinth, Mississippi”. If there was any hope of holding the city against General Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Tennessee, which would eventually grow to number 75,000 men, Gen. Pemberton would need men, supplies, and currency.

“The driver gave the order
‘Stoke that fire in the belly of the beast!’
With his consignment of souls, supplies & cash
He set out from the east” – Chunky Creek © C. R. Burgan, Jr.

In the early morning hours of February 19, 1863, a train carrying Confederate soldiers and some civilians departed from Meridian, Mississippi, bound for Vicksburg. Along with the passengers the train also carried supplies and a large amount of cash. Due to the battles being waged in the Union’s campaign for control of the river port, there was a great urgency to receive the train and its manifest.

The consist was led by an American 4-4-0 type locomotive known as Hercules; the engineer was Isaiah P. Beauchamp. Prior to the war both locomotive and driver had been based in New Orleans, Louisiana. On this date Hercules was pulling a tender and four cars, with 100 passengers aboard.

For months the region had been experiencing heavy rains which had caused the Chunky River to flood repeatedly. Each successive flooding brought more debris downriver, much of it coming to rest against the wooden pilings and trestles of the Southern Rail Road bridge that spanned the waterway.

The Southern Rail Road had acquired a reputation for having one of the least well-maintained trackages in the country. The Daily Southern Crisis, a newspaper in Jackson, reported that accidents on the line were a common occurrence.

A train had crossed the Chunky bridge a day ahead of the Hercules, but only after all the passengers had been removed from the train, with the train proceeding to slowly cross over the swollen river. It is believed that this train crossing may have caused the bridge to shift, settling to as much as 6 inches out of alignment with the rails on the eastern side of the span. Efforts were made to repair the bridge, but there was not an adequate crew to perform the work before the next train was due.

Absalom F. Temple was the section master for an approximately 8 mile section of railway that included the bridge over the Chunky River. On the day preceding Hercules‘ run he had been at the bridge four separate times, attempting to clear debris. Noticing that one of the bridge’s supports had come loose, and the bridge had begun to sag downstream, he asked another railroad employee to make sure the train departing Meridian early the next morning was held up and not allowed to cross the bridge.

Temple’s account was printed in The Daily Southern Crisis:

“ . . . I told him to be sure and keep a negro there for the purpose. I then dug a hole in the middle of the track and put up a thick pole about as near as I could tell 150 yards from the bridge. This is the usual method of stopping trains when danger is ahead . . . The next morning I had the hands up before daylight, and was just going out on the road to work . . . Just as I started out I met a man running up the road with the news of the accident”.

“Scoured from the landscape
And hastened by the flood
The detritus of a region swirled and mixed
With sweat and blood

“Pilings yielded to the pressure
The Chunky’s span no longer true
And the Mississippi Southern plunged into the flow
In its effort to push on through” – Chunky Creek © C. R. Burgan, Jr.

Hercules ran off the track as it entered the bridge, becoming completely submerged in the icy cold water. The tender and trailing cars landed on top of the locomotive, with the wooden cars being nearly demolished by the impact. Barrels and boxes were later found floating downstream.

The Athens Post, a newspaper based in Athens, Tennessee printed the following report:

“A man just in from Chunkey (sic) says the engine and five cars are under water.— the conductor is hurt, but swam out.—The engineer has not been heard from. Between twenty-five and fifty persons are supposed to be lost—mostly soldiers . . . The third and fifth cars had only troops and one horse—about seventy men in the two. The engineer was forward on the engine looking out, and the conductor was on the engine.”

“With brazen disregard for self
Dark schemes to circumvent
Came brave delivering angels
Most surely heaven sent” – Chunky Creek © C. R. Burgan, Jr.

Jack Amos, of the First Battalion of Choctaw Indians

Camped near the crash site happened to be a newly formed regiment, the 1st Battalion of Choctaw Indians. Hearing the commotion the soldiers rushed to the riverside, stripped down and immediately jumped into the water and began removing bodies. Samuel G. Spann, a captain at the time later reported in a magazine article that “ninety-six bodies were brought out upon a prominent strip of land above the waterline. Twenty-two were resuscitated . . . and all the balance were crudely interred upon the railroad right of way, where they now lie in full view of the passing train

Memorial wreath laid near the crash site

“The ultimate tribute offered
The utmost price was paid
Now their silent mortal vessels
Along the right of way are laid” – Chunky Creek © C. R. Burgan, Jr.

Most of those that perished were either killed by the initial impact or trapped underwater beneath the wreckage. Of the one hundred passengers on the train, seventy-five were perished, including the engineer, who had been trapped within the locomotive. A small number of the bodies were eventually disinterred by family or friends, but some remains were unable to be located due to the crude manner in which they were originally buried. A marker has been placed at the site to commemorate those whose lives were lost in the wreck.

I came upon an accounting of this incident inadvertantly, and believing that the story of the train wreck was little known I set upon telling it in my own way. While some artistic license was taken, I hope that I have been faithful to the details, and the memory of those whose lives were lost.

“You can’t cheat Mother Nature
Of the toll that she demands
The blood will let as you place your bet
And you leave it in the devil’s hands

And where the wheel stops turning
Only the Maker knows . . .
The muddy river flows” – Chunky Creek © C. R. Burgan, Jr.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vicksburg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Port_Hudson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicksburg_campaign

https://www.nchgs.org/html/train_wreck_1863.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunky_Creek_Train_Wreck

All photos sourced through internet searches, none belong to the author.

Will There Be Any Freight Trains in Heaven?

December 23, 2019 / C R Burgan

“Last night as I lay on the boxcar
Just waiting for a train to pass by
What will become of the hobo
Whenever his time comes to die” – Hobo’s Meditation (Jimmie Rodgers) © Peermusic Publishing

Hobo (noun) \ ˈhō-bō \

1: a migratory worker

2: a homeless and usually penniless vagabond

According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of the word hobo was in 1888; they also report that the origin of the word is unknown. Other sources suggest that hobo may have derived from the English word hawbuck, which means “country bumpkin”, or from the common working man’s greeting during the time of the building of the railroads, “Ho, beau!” Others theorize that it stems from hoe-boy, meaning “farmhand”, or is an abbreviation of “homeward bound.” It could also be an abbreviation of “homeless boy.”

Merriam-Webster lists synonyms for hobo as bindlestiff, bum, tramp, vagabond, vagrant. Another source describes a hobo as a migrant worker or homeless vagrant, especially one who is impoverished, but makes the distinction that a “tramp” works only when forced to, and a “bum” does not work at all.

Merriam-Webster also lists hobo as an intransitive verb, meaning: to live or travel in the manner of a hobo.

Sources may differ on the definition of what a hobo is, or from where the designation originated, but there is no doubt that popular culture over the past century has left us with vivid images of hoboes.

Even those who do not recognize the name of Emmett Kelly would likely be familiar with the visage of his clown character “Weary Willie”, which he based on images of Depression-era hoboes. Charlie Chaplin created his own iconic character, mostly by accident, which became known as “The Tramp”. And who hasn’t dressed for Halloween in over-sized and worn-out clothes, carrying a bindle stick over their shoulder? But are these accurate portrayals of real hoboes or simply caricatures from a bygone era?

“There’s a Master up yonder in heaven
Got a place that we might call our home
Will we have to work for a living
Or can we continue to roam” – Hobo’s Meditation (Rodgers)

No one can be exactly certain when hobos began riding the rails. At the end of the American Civil War many soldiers discharged from duty began “hopping” freight trains to return to their homes and families. Men who were looking for work or just a new adventure began catching trains westward toward the American frontier.

In 1906, after an exhaustive study, Professor Layal Shafee put the number of tramps in the US at about a half-million (about 0.6% of the US population at the time). His article “What Tramps Cost Nation” was published by The New York Telegraph in 1911, when he estimated the number had surged to 700,000.

In the Great Depression era of the 1930s the number of hoboes grew sharply. Having no work at home, men took to riding the rails for free, hoping to find better opportunities elsewhere.

The Autobiography of a Super-tramp book cover

Life on the rails was dangerous. British poet W.H. Davies, author of The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, lost a foot when he fell under the wheels trying to jump aboard a train. It was easy to be trapped between cars, and one could freeze to death in bad weather. Besides the physical danger of climbing on and off moving freight trains, hoboes often found themselves stranded in desolate places, with no food or water, rarely knowing whom they could trust, and always having to be on the lookout for railroad security staff, nicknamed “bulls”, for their frequently violent treatment of freeloaders.

“Will the hobo chum with the rich man
Will we always have money to spare
Will they have respect for the hobo
In that land that lies hidden up there” – Hobo’s Meditation (Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers, having grown up around railroading, and later working on the railroads himself, encountered many a hobo in his short lifetime, and even spent a little time riding the rails himself. He celebrated these men and their vagabond lifestyle in the lyrics of a number of his songs.

Same Train, A Different Time, by Merle Haggard - album cover

In 1968 Merle Haggard set about recording a tribute album to Jimmie Rodgers, who was one of his favorite artists. Released in the spring of the following year, Same Train, A Different Time (Merle Haggard Sings the Great Songs of Jimmie Rodgers) topped the country music charts without the benefit of a hit single. In between several of the album’s tracks Haggard included spoken word introductions, providing details of Rodgers’ life and the context of some of his compositions. Not surprisingly, much of Haggard’s narration speaks to Rodgers’ relationship with the hobo.

From “Narration #1”:

“Most of Jimmy’s in-person performances were in the area from Texas, east; and it was in this area that he knew the railroads and the railroaders, and the bums who rode the rods.

“Jimmy had a special feeling for the hobo and he was always good for a touch by one of the ‘knights of the road.’ He knew their problems and he knew them well, because Jimmy Rodgers had hoboed many of the mainlines himself.” Same Train, A Different Time (Merle Haggard Sings the Great Songs of Jimmie Rodgers)

From “Narration #4”:

“The hobo is a recurring subject in Jimmy Rodgers’ songs. Hoboing was an accepted form of travel for the migrant worker, or for the unemployed who simply wanted a change of weather. During the period of Jimmy’s greatest popularity, you could set your watch by the highball of any train.

“Hoboing was an inexpensive, almost sure way of getting from one place to another, and during the Depression it was not unusual to see, oh, maybe half a hundred ‘boes jump from a train just as it came into the outskirts of a city. They’d jump off as soon as they could so as to ditch the train “bulls” of the coming yard.

“But many quite respectable men found it convenient to hop trains also and many of ‘em died; identified only as a railroad bum . . .” – Same Train, A Different Time (Merle Haggard Sings the Great Songs of Jimmie Rodgers)

Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris - Trio album cover

While many songwriters have paid tribute to the hobo and the hobo lifestyle, probably none have done so more thoroughly than Jimmie Rodgers. One of my favorite Rodgers tunes is “Hobo’s Meditation”, which Merle Haggard covered well on his Same Train album. But another endearing version of that song can be found on the 1987 Warner Bros. Records release, Trio, featuring Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.

“Will there be any freight trains in heaven
Any boxcars in which we might hide
Will there be any tough cops or brakemen
Will they tell us that we cannot ride” – Hobo’s Meditation (Rodgers)

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hobo#h1

All photos sourced through internet searches, none belong to the author.