A Union soldier who arrived at Richmond’s Libby Prison in late June 1862 was not an ordinary prisoner of war. Captured during the bloody fighting along the Virginia Peninsula at Gaines’ Mill, he lifted the spirits of his fellow inmates with his singing. His clear tenor voice was familiar to many of the men, and for good reason. Their new cellmate was Marshall Spring Pike, a nationally known songwriter and performer who had dozens of hit songs to his name.
Born in Massachusetts in 1818, Pike showed musical talent early, writing music and lyrics by the age of fourteen. As a young man, he entered the traveling theatrical entertainment world at a time when issues of gender and race were at the forefront. By age twenty-five, he was performing female roles in whiteface with a flaxen wig alongside an all-male troupe known as the Albino Family. A few years later, the troupe adopted the blackface minstrel style, performing as the Harmonians and later as the Harmoneons.
The group enjoyed considerable success on stages across pre-Civil War America. After a series of performances in Bangor, Maine in 1845, one newspaper declared they had “never failed to please,” describing them as the best that had ever sung. Their travels took them through the North and into Canada, and in 1847 they reached the White House to perform for President James K. Polk.
Pike sang one of his major hits, “Washington’s Grave,” before the president. Two years later, in 1849, Pike married a young woman named Morning Oaks. That same year, he wrote another successful song, “Home Again,” which remained a staple into the twentieth century. Over the following decade, he continued performing on stage.
In 1857, he founded his own troupe, Pike’s Harmoneons, and returned to female impersonation roles with great success. One critic declared that Pike, as a comic imitator of female characters, held the top rank among professionals. When the Civil War swept the country, Pike set aside his stage persona for a time. In September 1861, at age 43, he volunteered for military service.
He naturally became the band leader of the 22nd Massachusetts Infantry, signing on October 8, just three days after the band joined the regiment. That same day, they left Camp Schouler in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, heading to Boston and then Washington, D. C. The regiment’s first major campaign came along the Virginia Peninsula in early 1862.
On June 27, at the Battle of Gaines’ Mill, the regiment suffered its heaviest single loss, with 84 men killed and wounded. Pike fell into enemy hands during the engagement and his captors took him to Libby Prison in Richmond. A postwar illustration of Pike’s life described his experience there. Some of those whose music-loving hearts he had delighted in earlier years, Southern friends and others who learned of his imprisonment, sought him out, easing somewhat the monotony of Libby Prison life.
To pass the gloomy hours, Pike formed a singing club among his fellow prisoners. Although that provided comfort, it worked against him. Prison authorities were so impressed with Pike’s vocal abilities that they kept him imprisoned when an exchange opportunity arose, solely to entertain the other prisoners. His captivity lasted about nine weeks.
On September 7, he left Libby Prison on parole and spent time at Fort Delaware and a parole camp in Maryland before being discharged a few days before Christmas 1862. Pike continued performing into the mid-1860s, according to postwar reports. It is unclear why he ended his musical career. Perhaps he retired early on his earnings as a performer and songwriter, or perhaps interest in his sentimental style of songs, as one newspaper described them, had faded.
In early 1891, three decades later, Pike came out of retirement and performed in Boston with other singers. That same year, at a regimental meeting, Pike learned from a guest that a valuable baton presented to him by his comrades on January 8, 1861, at Hall’s Hill, Virginia, and lost during the Battle of Gaines’ Mill, had been seen at the State House in Boston. After further inquiry, a committee formed by the regimental association investigated and confirmed that the state attorney general’s office held the baton, which Pike had last seen in a headquarters wagon with other baggage on the morning of the battle. The state handed the artifact to the committee after confirming the baton was Pike’s personal property.
His comrades returned it to him. Pike, overcome with joy, kissed it while tears streamed down his cheeks, according to reports. He died ten years later at age 83, having outlived his wife Morning, who had passed away in 1864.
Historians remember him as a pioneer of minstrel shows and one of the first to perform female roles on stage.