The campaign songs of Abraham Lincoln help to carry a working-class hero into the White House, while no songs are sung about his background as a wealthy corporate lawyer. Lincoln’s love of opera is only one further dimension to the music of the Civil War era; the sides are drawn in the popular music of the Union and the Confederacy, while the songs of the newly emancipated Black soldiers herald the turn of the tide toward Union victory. The Irish contribution is also charted musically, as are such contentious subjects as the New York Draft Riots and the fate of the war’s prisoners and its disabled veterans. The hope of emancipated Black Americans in the wake of Sherman’s March through Georgia is sung to the skies, before the assassination of Lincoln paves the way for Andrew Johnson and the betrayal of Reconstruction.