Confederate Vermonters
Armand Edward Blackmar was born in Bennington, Vermont May 30, 1826. He attended Western Reserve College in Ohio. From 1852 to 1855 he was professor of music at Centenary College in Jackson, Louisiana. In 1858 he and his brother H.C. Blackmar started a music publishing company in Vicksburg, Mississippi. By 1860 they had moved to New Orleans, where they remained until at least 1882, except for a short period of time from 1862 to 1865 when his brother moved the operation to Augusta, Georgia, because Armand had been fined and imprisoned by General Ben Butler for publishing 'seditious' music.
He was a very good violinist and pianist, a chess expert, and a charter member of the Chess, Checkers and Whist Club of New Orleans. Armand is listed in the "Biographical Dictionary of American Music. By Charles Eugene Claghorn. West Nyack, NY: Parker Publishing Co., 1973."
Some of the music he published shows his political leanings:
Dixie war song (1861)
God and our rights (1861)
Short rations (1864)
Southern Marseillaise (1861/2)
The Southrons' Chaunt of defiance (1861)
The Beauregard Manassas quick-step (1861)
Those dark eyes. Favorite ballads of the South (1865/8)
Washington artillery polka march (1864)
You can never win us back; a patriotic song (1864)Even more revealing of his feelings can be found in the name of his first child, born in 1861, Louisianna Rebel Blackmar.
Links:
The Camp Jester, or, Amusement for the Mess: Electronic Edition.
Sources:
E. Lawrence Abel, "Singing the New Nation: How Music Shaped the Confederacy, 1861-1865," (Stackpole Books, 1999)
Richard Crawford, "The Civil War Songbook: Complete Original Sheet Music for 37 Songs," (Courier Dover Publications, 1995)
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