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Yellow Rose of Texas
Old-Time, Song and Breakdown Widely known
ARTIST: A manuscript of a poem, but not music, appeared around 1836 signed "H.B.C." and giving honor to a lover- this handwritten version was dedicated to "E.A. Jones".
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes
DATE: Earliest date, circa 1836, is a handwritten transcript stored in the archives at the University of Texas, Austin. The first known publication of this piece occurred in 1858 (published by William A. Pond).
RECORDING INFO: County 524, "Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters: 1927 Recordings." Flying Cloud FC-023, Kirk Sutphin - "Fiddlin' Around." Flying Fish FF-009, The Red Clay Ramblers - "Stolen Love" (1975). Folkways FA 2492, New Lost City Ramblers - "String Band Instrumentals" (1964). Gennett 6143 (78 RPM), Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters (1927. Ben Jarrell on fiddle). Okeh 451744 (78 RPM), North Carolina Cooper Boys. Merriweather Records, Pat Kingery - "I Kind of Believe it's a Gift" (an unusual version). Milton Brown & his Musical Brownies, "Yellow Rose of Texas" (Decca 5273, 1936); DaCosta Woltz's Southern Broadcasters, "Yellow Rose of Texas" (Gennett 6143, 1927); Gene Autry, "Yellow Rose of Texas" (Conqueror 8096, 1933); New Lost City Ramblers, "Yellow Rose of Texas" [instrumental] (on NLCR07) Song of the Texas Rangers (NOT Laws A8; War Songs and Poems of the Southern Confederacy, pp. 175-176)
RELATED TO: "The Bouncing Girl in Fogo" OTHER NAMES: "The Yellow Rose of Taegu"
SOURCES: Danny Gardella [Phillips]. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), Vol. 1, 1994; pg. 262. Sweet (Fifer's Delight), 1965/1981; pg. 14. Mountain 310, Tommy Jarrell - "Joke on the Puppy" (1976. Learned from his father, fiddler Ben Jarrell). RJackson-19CPop, pp. 253-257, "The Yellow Rose of Texas" (1 text, 1 tune); Silber-CivWar, pp. 28-29, "The Yellow Rose of Texas" (1 text, 1 tune); Gilbert, pp. 20-21, "The Yellow Rose of Texas" (1 text); Silber-FSWB, p. 272, "The Yellow Rose Of Texas" (1 text); JHCox 128, "The Yellow Rose of Texas" (1 text); Fuld-WFM, p. 661+, "The Yellow Rose of Texas"
NOTES: The “Yellow Rose of Texas” was a hit for Mitch Miller in 1955. A manuscript of a poem, but not music, appeared around 1836 signed "H.B.C." and giving honor to a lover: The earliest known copy of the song "The Yellow Rose of Texas" appeared soon after the Battle of San Jacinto. This handwritten version was dedicated to "E.A. Jones". Oddly enough, one "Edward A. Jones" was the first African American to graduate from an American university - Amherst College, in 1826. Any connection between the two is unknown.
It was extremely popular with Southern troops in the Civil War, and frequently parodied, the first known publication of this piece occurred in 1858 (published by William A. Pond). That version appears to be a minstrel piece; in it, both lovers are "darkeys." The only attribution is to "J.K.," who was and still remains unknown.
“It is interesting that, in the Civil War, the troops often sang, "She's the sweetest rose of color this SOLDIER (or, later, FELLOW) ever knew." This would hardly have been acceptable to the Southern gentry; it was miscegenation.” Ballad index.
The debate about the origin of the song and who the “rose” of Texas was, rages on. Certain sites name Emily D. West, called Emily Morgan as the “rose” and credit her with Sam Houston's army victory during the Mexican war by “distracting” Santa Anna.
“James "Sparky" Rucker places this song in the period of the Mexican War [properly, the Texas rebellion with thanks to Cirk R. Bejnar], stating that the "Yellow Rose" was Santa Anna's mulatto (American) girlfriend, who stole his battle plans before the battle of San Jacinto and delivered them to the American army.” Ballad index
Here’s a three paragraph article by Margaret Swett Henson debunking the assertions: WEST, EMILY D. Emily D. West, erroneously called Emily Morgan by those who presumed her a slave of James Morganqv and the "Yellow Rose of Texas" by twentieth-century myth-makers, was born a free black in New Haven, Connecticut. She signed a contract with agent James Morgan in New York City on October 25, 1835, to work a year as housekeeper at the New Washington Association'sqv hotel, Morgan's Point, Texas. Morgan was to pay her $100 a year and provide her transportation to Galveston Bay on board the company's schooner, scheduled to leave with thirteen artisans and laborers in November. She arrived in Texas in December on board the same vessel as Emily de Zavalaqv and her children. On April 16, 1836, while James Morgan was absent in Galveston in command of Fort Travis, Mexican cavalrymen under command of Col. Juan N. Almonteqv arrived at New Washington to seize President David G. Burnet,qv who was embarking on a schooner for Galveston Island. As the president and his family sailed away, the troops seized Emily and other black servants at Morgan's warehouse, along with a number of white residents and workmen. Gen. Antonio López de Santa Annaqv arrived at New Washington the following day, and after three days of resting and looting the warehouses, he ordered the buildings set afire and departed to challenge Sam Houston'sqv army, which was encamped about ten miles away on Buffalo Bayou. Emily was forced to accompany the Mexican army, doubtless already a rape victim. With regard to the Yellow Rose legend, she may have been in Santa Anna's tent when the Texans charged the Mexican camp on April 21, but it was not by choice. She could not have known Houston's plans, nor could she have intentionally delayed Santa Anna. Moreover, in their official reports after returning to Mexico, none of his disaffected officers mentioned the presence of a woman or even that el presidente was in a state of undress. After the battle Emily found refuge with Isaac N. Moreland,qv an artillery officer, who later made his home in Houston and served as county judge. Strangers assumed Emily was James Morgan's slave because she was black.
A story was told around campfires and in barrooms that Emily had helped defeat the Mexican army by a dalliance with Santa Anna. The only discovered documentation for this in the nineteenth century was a chance conversation in 1842 between a visiting Englishman and a veteran on board a steamer from Galveston to Houston. William Bollaertqv recorded in his journal, "The battle of San Jacinto was probably lost to the Mexicans, owing to the influence of a Mulatta Girl (Emily) belonging to Col. Morgan who was closeted in the tent with G'l Santana." Bollaert does not identify the veteran or say Emily was Morgan's slave. The edited diary, published in 1956, included that notation as a footnote with Bollaert's name attached, a fact that led readers to believe the note was a footnote in the original manuscript. The editor's 1956 footnote launched prurient interest on the part of two amateur historians who concocted the modern fiction. Francis X. Tolbert,qv a prolific journalist, says in his The Day of San Jacinto (1959) that Emily was a "decorative long-haired mulatto girl...Latin looking woman of about twenty." No footnote documents this description or the author's statement that she was in Santa Anna's tent. Tolbert also presumptively identified Morgan as the informant. Henderson Shuffler,qv also a journalist, became a publicist for Texas A&M University in the 1950s, wrote historical articles for the Southwestern Historical Quarterly,qv and made speeches while working at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centerqv at the University of Texas in the 1960s. On one occasion he said Emily was "the M'latta Houri" of the Texas Revolution,qv a "winsome, light-skinned...slave of James Morgan." He added that she was a fitting candidate for the identity of the girl in the then-popular Mitch Miller version of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." Shuffler credited Tolbert for bringing Emily's story out into the open and then manufactured more fantasies, including the whim that "her deliberately provocative amble down the street [in New Washington was] the most exciting event in town." He added that her story was "widely known and often retold...in the 1840s." In closing, he suggested that a stone might be placed at the San Jacinto battleground "In Honor of Emily Who Gave Her All for Texas Piece by Piece." In 1976 a professor of English at Sam Houston State University, Martha Anne Turner, published a small book, The Yellow Rose of Texas: Her Saga and Her Song, an outgrowth of a paper she delivered in 1969 at the American Studies Association of Texas. She credits Shuffler's speech and adds even more undocumented details before tracing the roots of the song. Thus the story was full-blown for the journalistic frenzy of the Texas Sesquicentennial in 1986.
The real Emily D. West remained in Texas until early 1837, when she asked for and received a passport allowing her to return home. Isaac Moreland wrote a note to the secretary of state saying that he had met Emily in April 1836, that she was a thirty-six-year-old free woman who had lost her "free" papers at the battleground. She stated that she came from New York in September 1835 with Colonel Morgan and was anxious to return home. Although there is no date on the application housed in the Texas State Archives, Mrs. Lorenzo de Zavala, by then a widow, was planning to return to New York on board Morgan's schooner in March, and it seems possible that Morgan arranged passage aboard for Emily.
MORE NOTES: The song is believed to have a minstrel origin. Cox, "Folk-Songs of the South," notes for song #128, refers to "Christy's Plantation Melodies No. 2," p. 52; "The Christy Minstrels Song Book (London) II, 84 (with music) and others. The author of the 1858 version "J. K" has never been identified. “Yellow Rose of Texas” is also included in a little volume called "Songs of Love and Liberty," by "a North Carolina Lady," 1864, p. 35, same words as the sheet music.
After becoming popular during the Civil War, it passed into Southern fiddling tradition. "Folk-processing" of the song sometimes resulted in the woman referred to as the 'yellow rose' in the lyrics being called a 'red rose', but clearly a female person-of-color was meant for the minstrel version (which also refers to the woman as 'this darkey'). More than 25 years later, the lyrics were changed. "Soldier" replaced "darkey." And the first line of the chorus was also changed to read, "She's the sweetest little flower...."
In 1864, General John B. Hood's retreating Confederate Army was shattered in defeat. As his men moved southward in dismay, many thought the war may be over and a fourth stanza was added:
And now I'm going southward, for my heart is full of woe,
I'm going back to Georgia, to see my Uncle Joe.
You may talk about your Beauregard, and sing of Bobbie Lee,
But the gallant Hood of Texas played hell in Tennessee. [Chorus]
Some versions have the third line changed to read, "...and sing of General Lee," - an obvious reference to the Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
Here are the lyrics to Yellow Rose of Texas:
YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS
Yellow Rose of Texas Original Lyrics(c.1836): Spelling intact
From the handwritten transcript, stored in the archives at the University of Texas, Austin:
There's a yellow rose in Texas, that I am going to see,
No other darky [sic] knows her, no darky only me
She cryed [sic] so when I left her it like to broke my heart,
And if I ever find her, we nevermore will part.
[Chorus] She's the sweetest rose of color this darky ever knew,
Her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew;
You may talk about your Dearest May, and sing of Rosa Lee,
But the Yellow Rose of Texas beats the belles of Tennessee.
When the Rio Grande is flowing, the starry skies are bright,
She walks along the river in the quite [sic] summer night:
She thinks if I remember, when we parted long ago,
I promised to come back again, and not to leave her so. [Chorus]
Oh now I'm going to find her, for my heart is full of woe,
And we'll sing the songs togeather [sic], that we sung so long ago
We'll play the bango gaily, and we'll sing the songs of yore,
And the Yellow Rose of Texas shall be mine forevermore. [Chorus]
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