Abraham Lincoln in his Times Chapter 19 Forging Cultural Unity Part 5

Abraham Lincoln in his Times Chapter 19 Forging Cultural Unity Part 5

banjo-strumming black man who was said to be “coming to town.” The chorus went: “Picayune Butler, coming, coming, / Picayune Butler come to town. / Ahoo, ahoo, ahoo, ahoo, ahoo!” A journalist leaked the incident, which the press immediately distorted. Sensational journalists invented the story that the president,  when surveying the ghastly remains of those who had fallen at Antietam, had requested “Picayune Butler,” to the disgust of McClellan, who allegedly refused to hear a song that he considered an example of callous levity in the face of real tragedy. In the words of the  New York World , “The ambulance had just reached the neighborhood of the old stone bridge, where the dead were piled highest, when Mr. Lincoln, suddenly slapping Marshal Lamon on the knee, exclaimed: ‘Come, Lamon, give us that song about Picayune Butler; McClellan has never heard it.’ ‘Not now, if you please,’ said General McClellan, with a shudder; ‘I would prefer to hear it some other place and time.’” 101 Among sa…