"...George Cowls says tell Nancy he is right in his glory to day and when he comes home he is agoing to dance the spanish dance with you and he says tell Abby he is agoing through ceders swamp with her..."
-- Pvt. Jairus Hammond to Nancy Titus, December 8, 1862
Here's rare documentation of a specific dance: a mention in a letter from a Union soldier during the American Civil War to his sister, dated one hundred and fifty-two years ago today, that another man plans to dance the Spanish Dance (previously described here) with her when he returns. There has been no real doubt that the Spanish Dance was actually danced and was as popular as its frequent appearance in dance manuals suggests. I have found it listed on dozens of dance cards. But this is another little piece of documentation demonstrating that its popularity extended well down the social scale.
In late 1862, Jairus Hammond was a private in Company K of the 26th Massachusetts Infantry, then stationed in New Orleans. A little more about him may be found at his brief biography at the Private Voices project of The Corpus of American Civil War Letters Project, which publishes transcriptions of letters by "transitionally literate" Civil War soldiers, meaning soldiers who wrote "by ear", as they spoke, rather than using correct spelling and grammar.
Hammond was a man of his time, so while a transcription of the full letter (which includes no other dance mentions) may be found here, be warned that fighting for the Union did not necessarily indicate lack of racial prejudice, as was reflected in his word choice.
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