Historical Notes

"This excellent Band, organized in May, 1860, and which came here with the Sumter Light Guards, has afforded our citizens great gratification during their sojourn in the city, by the very fine music thay have given us. They are capital performers. On Tuesday evening they played a musical melange upon the Bell Tower, and the sweet harmony elicited was the theme of general remark and commendation. We regret that their engagements rendered it necessary for them to return to Americus Tuesday night, and hope that we shall enjoy a visit from them again at no distant day."

—Augusta Daily Chronicle & Sentinel, May 2nd, 1861

"The Americus Brass Band shows off to quite an advantage. The citizens here award to it the meed of praise, as being the best band in the state; the probability is that they will be added to the 4th Regiment as musicians."

—excerpt from a letter home by a private in the Sumter Light Guards

"This fine Band, who gave us such excellent music at the time of their late visit here with the Sumter Light Guard, we learn from the Sumter Republican of the 17th, has been accepted for the Fourth Regiment of Georgia Volunteers, stationed at Portsmouth, VA, and expects to leave for that place on Thursday next. On Wednesday evening they shall give a Concert at Americus to raise funds to help defray their expenses. The Band (musicians) do not propose to be supernumeraries, but to engage actively in the service of their country."

—Augusta Daily Chronicle & Sentinel, May 19th, 1861

It was 1861. On a dusty road out of Americus, GA, young men were marching off to a war they were certain would be short. Marching with them was the year-old Americus Brass Band. The town musicians planned to return home after lending a few days of musical and moral support. But they become so charged by what seemed an adventure that they, too, joined the 4th Georgia Volunteers, becoming an official Confederate army band of 18 men. Four years later, the Americus Brass Band was captured when Union troops overran a Confederate field hospital near Appomattox Court House, VA. It was three days before Robert E. Lee surrendered his Southern troops. The band had six members."

—Tom Hennessy, Long Beach Press Telegram, June 2nd, 1991

"The Rebel prisoners were formed in a column and marched along the roadside, headed by the band, playing their national air of Dixie."

—Music and Muskets by Kenneth E. Olson, 1981

"The scene was an impressive one. They were prisoners of war, bleeding from wounds, faint and famished, ragged and nearly barefoot, and their last hope gone, but as the familiar strains of the music floated back over the line their faces brightened, their steps quickened and they marched as they had marched many a time behind their beloved leader, General Lee. Our men had too much respect for these brave men to jeer at them. The brave invariably respect the brave, and as the soldiers of the lost cause passed the veterans of the 2nd Corps, all were silent and respectful, except for an occasional burst of applause which manifested itself by the clapping of hands."

—Drum Taps in Dixie by Delavan S. Miller, 1905