The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down

[Draggingtree]

The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down

By Garrick Sapp  October 18, 2023

Has Virgil Kane Been Reconstructed?

 In 1865 George Stoneman was a mediocre Union general leading cavalry behind Confederate lines in Virginia. 100 years later a Canadian rock band made him famous.

 It took Robbie Robertson more than six months to write the song. He spent time in libraries researching the end of the war. Many say it was an anti-war song which makes sense as it was first released in 1969. At the time, Rolling Stone Magazine reckoned the song had “that ring of truth and the whole aura of authenticity”. Now, if performed at all, lyrics are changed to ensure the proper hatred of the Confederacy comes through and Robert E. Lee is not celebrated.

 Robertson was Canadian and his mother was raised on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve southwest of Toronto. This must have influenced him. He was a storyteller. In 2019 an interviewer asked him about his song “glorifying the Confederacy”, he answered by saying “it was a story.” He said it was “about a Southern family that lost in the war, in the Civil War, from their side, but the story of that family.”

 Robertson died recently, and the Los Angels Times did a piece on his songs. Here is what they said about “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”: 

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/the-night-they-drove-ol-dixie-down/