Santa Anna's Retreat (fiddle, cross-tuned)

I originally learned this tune as a banjo tune from my dear friend and mentor Dwight Diller of Pocohontas County, West Virginia. My great great grandfather, John Hooks Lendrum, was present on the occasion of the historical event memorialized by this tune. Henry Reed (b. 1884 in Monroe County, West Virginia) learned the tune ‘Santa Anna’s Retreat’ from Quince Dillon, who was a fifer in the Mexican War and an old man when Henry Reed was a boy. Antonio López de Santa Anna was the commander of the Mexican army in the Mexican-American War, 1846-1848. My ancestor John Hooks Lendrum, a West Point graduate, entered the war as a 2nd Lieutenant with the 3rd Artillery Regiment of the U.S. Army. He was made a 'brevet' 1st Lieutenant at the Battle of Churubusco, and a brevet Captain at the Battle of Chapultepec. He fought in the same regiment as then-1st Lieutenant William T. Sherman, as well as Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, George Pickett, and Thomas F. Jackson. The efforts of the U.S. Marines in the Battle of Chapultepec and subsequent occupation of Mexico City are memorialized by the opening lines of the Marines' Hymn. "From the Halls of Montezuma..." is a reference to the Chapultepec Castle, also known as the Halls of Montezuma. Marine Corps tradition maintains that the red stripe worn on the trousers of the Blue Dress uniform of officers and noncommissioned officers, commonly known as the “blood stripe,” commemorates those Marines killed storming the castle of Chapultepec in 1847. Although the use of stripes predates the Mexican War, in 1849 the color was changed to red. Captain John H. Lendrum is now buried in the officers' section of the San Francisco National Cemetery at the Presidio of San Francisco, where he served as commanding officer of Fort Point in the years leading up to the Civil War.
#Fiddle #OldTime #Appalachian #WestVirginia #CrossTuning #Diller

[@warrenhuff7349]

A fine tune with a very interesting history! Thanks for sharing it.