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To The End, 1907-1909
Gilbert Gaul
"To the End" is a composition deeply rooted in the sentimental and oft repeated myth of "loyal slaves": those who followed their masters into battle, rescued them on the battlefields, and even carried their masters' bodies home to the plantation. While some slaveholders did take their so-called "body servants" with them at the outset of the war, their numbers were meager compared to the tens of thousands of slaves who were impressed into service. Although Gaul depicts this stoic black subject as dignified and even heroic, such images served as propaganda for the "real values of the Old South," perpetuating the mistruth that enslaved blacks were willing brothers-in-arms alongside their white masters. |