Willie Wilson is trying to help, but ...

The perennial candidate's fuel giveaway is not a gas gas gas

To read this issue in your browser, click on the headline above.

3-24-2022 (issue No. 28)

Radio and TV traffic reporters will be earning their keep Thursday morning keeping track of 50 unusually clogged areas outside of 50 area gas stations where Willie Wilson is funding a million-dollar gas giveaway.

I admit to having muttered cynically to myself a week ago when Wilson, 73, created 10 jams surrounding 10 stations in a $200,000 gas giveaway. The stations were all in the city — one just a few blocks from my house on the Northwest Side — which caused me to conclude that Wilson was trying to buy favor with city voters in advance of next February’s mayoral election.

He ran for that office in 2015 and again in 2019, finishing with a creditable 11% of the vote each time. In 2019 he won 13 of 18 Black wards He also competed in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries and ran for U.S. Senate in Illinois in 2020 as the nominee of the Willie Wilson Party. He again finished third, this time with just 4% of the vote.

But when I saw that 22 of the 50 stations doling out free fuel Thursday will be in the Cook County suburbs, I wondered if I’d misjudged Wilson’s intent. Unless he’s planning a surprise Willie Wilson Party candidacy for county office this fall, voters in those towns won’t be able to help him.

Could it be that, even though Wilson is yet another successful entrepreneur besotted by dreams of political power and unable to take “no” for an answer from the electorate, he’s also a very generous man who wants to help people? Could it be that he has no ulterior motives?

After all, in the past he has donated money to help homeowners pay onerous property taxes and to help those jailed on misdemeanor charges make bail. I think he genuinely wants to help people and cares about the less fortunate.

Well, I don’t want to flip the switch from excess cynicism to excess naiveté. These gas giveaways are stunts — inefficient and unnecessarily disruptive. The benefits are not necessarily flowing to those most in need of financial help, but to those who can afford to own cars and who have the time and patience to wait in long lines. A targeted disbursal of, say, prepaid $50 credit cards in our most disadvantaged neighborhoods would have provided a better boost to those who need it most — for food, rent, transit fares or gas — without generating “nightmarish traffic snarls and noxious fumes,” in the memorable phrase of Streetsblog co-editor John Greenfield.

But it also would not generate dozens — hundreds — of mentions of the name Willie Wilson in local media, mentions that will create memories of generosity that linger long after the annoyance of streets clogged with idling cars has faded.

In an op-ed in The TRiiBE, Shermann “Dilla” Thomas raised some other pointed objections:

Folks on the South and West sides have higher asthma rates than those on the North Side. Having hundreds of cars idling near homes and schools is not good, and it will later hurt those Dr. Wilson wants to help.

Because of decades of disinvestment, there aren’t very many jobs on the South and West sides. Because of that, a lot of those residents commute to other parts of the city and surrounding suburbs for work. Blocking the expressway entrances and exit lanes on major thoroughfares on the South and West side also hurts the residents he’s trying to help.

With so many cars struggling to find a place in line to receive the free gas at participating stations, the city had to deploy Chicago Police Department officers to control the traffic. I don’t think I am out of line by saying that CPD has a strained relationship with the very residents who were in line for the free gas. That type of commotion could lead to a negative interactions with the police, and none of us want that. Not to mention that pulling squad cars off their beats to keep the peace for free gas giveaways is not a good use of taxpayer dollars.

About that title …

For the record, Thomas’ reference to “Dr. Wilson” notwithstanding, Wilson is neither a medical doctor nor a Ph.D. He calls himself “doctor” because he’s been awarded a series of honorary doctorates, mostly from religious institutions, to thank him for his substantial donations.

During the last mayoral race, I wrote that the way Wilson doctors his resume, if you will, he effectively diminishes how impressive it is that he's been such a huge success in business even though his classroom education ended after 7th grade.

This accusation of stolen academic valor annoyed Wilson so much that, during an endorsement interview with the Tribune Editorial Board in 2019, he cited it as the reason that he would not share a copy of his tax returns with the paper. I was at that interview, and when I encountered Wilson a few hours later pressing the flesh in the pedway, he explained why he feels he’s earned the honorific.

I didn’t take notes, but I summarized his explanation later in print:

The title of "doctor" is an acknowledgment of and expression of respect for his philanthropic efforts in poor, largely African-American communities, and the jobs his businesses have created. He has achieved more and given back more than most people with Ph.D.s, M.D.s and other actual academic degrees.

I’ll give John Greenfield the last word here:

Gas giveaways don’t just benefit some residents while leaving others out in the cold, they actively harm vulnerable people by slowing down buses and creating more emissions. And they’re a pain in the neck for everyone else, including drivers. As such, large-scale free gas promotions should be outlawed. … Wilson should absolutely be required to pay back municipalities for the police resources diverted for his publicity stunt. And ideally we would send him a bill for the wasted productivity and environmental degradation caused by his vanity traffic jams.

Last week’s winning tweet

The Volatile Mermaid@OhNoSheTwitnt

There are Americans dumb enough to complain about gas prices while donating money to an alleged billionaire for a new private plane, in case you wondered how we haven’t been able to stop the spread of COVID in this county yet.

11:58 AM · Mar 10, 2022

---

523 Reposts · 3.76K Likes

One reader complained that this tweet was a nonsequitur and therefore not funny. But readers disagreed and found the link between the science-denying ignorance that fueled the spread of the coronavirus with the blinkered credulity of those who throw money at Donald Trump to aid his luxurious lifestyle while simultaneously griping that they can’t afford increases in gas prices.

I get the joke, obviously, but I also see how it’s hard to compare a highly partisan tweet like this with the close runner-up, “Nurses should be allowed to veto one baby name a shift" by @ozzyunc.

The Volatile Mermaid has two tweets in the sweet 16 in Tweet Madness, my bracket poll to pick the readers’ favorite tweet of the 2021-22 season. Both entries in the contest that pits weekly winning tweets against one another, have a partisan edge and both, at this point, are winning their matchups. Go vote!

Scroll down to read this week’s nominees or click here to vote in the new poll.

Lia Thomas falls short of predictions at NCAA women’s swimming championships, and that’s a good thing

University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas may have been disappointed by her last-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle final and her fifth-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle final in the NCAA championship meet over the weekend, but imagine the damage that might have been done had she won those events and smashed world records in the process, as some were predicting.

Thomas is a transgender woman who competed on the men’s team at Penn for the first three years of her collegiate career. After a year of hormone replacement therapy, she joined the women’s team where she became one of the top racers in the country and, as such, an anecdotal example for legislators all across the country pushing for comprehensive bans on athletes who were assigned male at birth competing in competitions limited to females.

Sports Illustrated has the most thorough look at her story:

At a November 2021 meet against Princeton and Cornell, Thomas posted the NCAA season-best times in the 200-yard freestyle and the 500-yard freestyle, set Penn records in those events and won three individual races. In the blowout 500 free, she beat the second-place finisher by nearly 13 seconds. …

At the Ivy League championships in February (Thomas beat) Olympian Kate Ziegler’s pool record in the 500-yard freestyle … (and set) a pool and Ivy League record in the 200-yard freestyle.

At the NCAA meet, Thomas beat her nearest competitors by roughly 3 seconds in the 500-yard free. But her winning time of 4:33.24 was well off Katie Ledecky’s NCAA and American record of 4:24:06 set in 2017.

Thank goodness. There has already been considerable uproar over the inclusion of a trans woman swimmer who gained the physical advantages of having gone through male puberty. Hormone therapy can dampen but not totally eliminate what in other circumstances would be thought of as an artificial advantage.

With her earlier successes — dominating the pool in a way she hadn’t when swimming as a man — Thomas was becoming a living worst-case scenario for those who worry that trans competitors will ruin girls’ and women’s sports. And a best-case scenario for those who want to pass laws limiting rights and opportunities for trans people.

If Thomas had smashed NCAA records and won all three of her events last weekend, the backlash against her participation and the future participation of trans athletes would have been greater than it already is. Her solid but not superwoman performance should leave the door open for attempts to write compromise rules and regulations that will allow trans woman and girls to compete while addressing the legitimate concerns of cis female athletes and their allies that athletes assigned male at birth will deprive them of victories they deserve and the fairness that is integral to sports.

Most trans people, like most cisgendered people, are not star athletes. They participate in sports for exercise, companionship and the excitement of competition. Laws that would deny trans girls and trans women such opportunities because of the one-off successes of Lia Thomas are misguided, but so are defiant claims from trans rights activists that athletes who have always identified as female have no right to complain and anyone who does complain is a transphobic bigot.

Utah’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox, was eloquent in a letter Tuesday explaining why he was vetoing a ban on transgender girls in school sports: "I am not an expert on transgenderism,” he wrote. “I struggle to understand so much of it and the science is conflicting. When in doubt however, I always try to err on the side of kindness, mercy and compassion. I also try to get proximate and I am learning so much from our transgender community. They are great kids who face enormous struggles.”

Cox wrote of “kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are a part of something” and noted that “rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few.”

A day earlier, Indiana Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb vetoed a similar bill, saying he found no evidence that athletes assigned male at birth were compromising girls sports.

News reports suggest legislators in both states will override those vetoes and Utah and Indiana will join Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia on the roster of states that have banned at accredited schools transgender women and girls from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

Speaking of Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a proclamation Tuesday honoring Florida native Emma Weyant, the swimmer who finished second to Thomas in the 500 free, by naming her the "rightful winner" of the race.

Transgender attorney Joanie Rae Wimmer of Oak Park and I have discussed the Lia Thomas story and other aspects of trans identity and trans rights in our online dialogue.

There’s no irony deficiency when it comes to The New York Times’ editorial extolling the value of free speech

Under the headline, “ America Has a Free Speech Problem,” the New York Times Editorial Board last Friday rose up to smite “cancel culture” in an essay that began:

Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.

Critics of the essay rightly spat their coffee across the room. There is no “right,” constitutional or informally recognized, to spout toxic nonsense or even unconventional views without fear of coming under withering criticism. Neo-Nazis and followers of QAnon, for example, shouldn’t even have the expectation that their opinions will be received calmly.

But after stumbling out of the starting gate, the editorial made some good points:

The political left and the right are caught in a destructive loop of condemnation and recrimination around “cancel culture.” Many on the left refuse to acknowledge that cancel culture exists at all, believing that those who complain about it are offering cover for bigots to peddle hate speech. Many on the right, for all their braying about cancel culture, have embraced an even more extreme version of censoriousness as a bulwark against a rapidly changing society, with laws that would ban books, stifle teachers and discourage open discussion in classrooms.

Many Americans are understandably confused, then, about what they can say and where they can say it. People should be able to put forward viewpoints, ask questions and make mistakes, and take unpopular but good-faith positions on issues that society is still working through — all without fearing cancellation.

However you define cancel culture, Americans know it exists, and feel its burden.

It went on, “There is a difference between hate speech and speech that challenges us in ways that we might find difficult or even offensive.”

Fine words. But they were rich indeed coming from a newspaper that in 2020 forced opinion editor James Bennet to resign after he published a op-ed by Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton advocating for the use of the U.S. military to restore order on the streets during during protests over the police killing of George Floyd.

And the sentiment clanged coming from a newspaper whose editors drummed out of the newsroom Donald G. McNeil Jr., a highly respected veteran science and public health reporter because he mentioned a highly toxic racial slur in asking a question of a high school student during a foreign trip. He didn’t use the slur, as many headlines put it. He didn’t deploy it to insult or offend. He spoke in a context that acknowledged that it’s a particularly hurtful term.

Whether and when it’s permissible for white people like McNeil to let that word pass their lips certainly a challenging issue that “society is still working through” as standards evolve. In many circles, even the most benign use of the word by a white person — reading aloud from a court opinion or “Huckleberry Finn,” for instance — has come to be seen as a grave offense worthy of termination.

Was McNeil’s a good-faith mistake? Almost certainly. The word is out of bounds now, and it’s not a big ask for white people to avoid it. But there was no racist intent behind McNeil’s mention of the word, no personal history of racist acts or deeds that would have made this a final straw.

Was it a good faith mistake or even a mistake at all for James Bennet to publish an essay by a United States Senator taking a position that, like it or not (and I did not), tens of millions of Americans undoubtedly shared?

Let’s say it was a mistake — that the opinion was irresponsibly extreme. The New York Times of mid-March 2022 would say the remedy was immediately to publish a strong, well-argued counterpoint to Sen. Cotton’s view, not to ashcan the opinion editor.

But as if attempting to top this irony, liberal journalist Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch, posted a commentary headlined “The New York Times editorial board should retract and resign” in which he named the opinion editor and her deputy “for the record.” He called for more shaming and shunning, not less, and suggested everyone on the board quit in disgrace for the shared sin of claiming that many people are afraid to offer opinions these days because there are censorious ideologues out there who get so enraged by views with which they disagree that the backlash might cost them their jobs.

Where would they ever get that idea?

Land of Linkin’

• Salon: “From GOAT to ghost: Here are America’s 30 most googled slang terms.” We cheugy Boomers appreciate the guidance. No cap.

• In “The Ketanji Brown Jackson Hearings Show Marriage Equality Is the Next Target Once Roe Falls,” Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern writes, “The fact that Republicans don’t talk much about marriage equality these days doesn’t mean they’ve accepted it. The GOP’s 2020 platform called for the government to cease recognizing same-sex unions. Republican legislators around the country are falling over themselves to ban discussion of same-sex marriage in public schools. And now Republican senators have used the Jackson hearings to test the waters with Obergefell, revealing a newly invigorated push for its reversal.”

• Rascals in the news: Brandon Pope and Jon Hansen, members of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast team, will be key figures in “On the Block,” an upcoming newsmagazine show on WCIU-Ch. 26, WMEU-Ch. 48.1 and MeTV Chicago. Pope will host and Hansen will serve as coordinating producer and reporter for the show, which will feature stories from Block Club Chicago, per Daily Herald media blogger Robert Feder.

• Speaking of news podcasts, my fingers are crossed for the return of “Connected to Chicago,” WLS-AM 890’s weekly roundup that the station has just put on hiatus. The panel discussion usually includes Greg Hinz of Crain’s Chicago Business, Ray Long of the Tribune, Lynn Sweet of the Sun Times and Heather Cherone of WTTW-Ch. 11 and “The Mincing Rascals.”

• The single worst take I have ever read on sports and gender is a Twitter thread by Sheree Bekker, associate professor of health at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. Bekker contends that “women’s sports exist as a category because the dominance of men was threatened by women competing. …(Those in power) didn’t want women ‘taking opportunities’ away from men so they segregated women.It was never about a benevolent (still sexist) aim of supposedly ‘giving women a chance to win’. It was about control.”

• The Picayune Sentinel on the air: Today from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m., WCPT-AM 820 host Joan Esposito and I will chat about ideas raised in the new issue and more. The listen-live link is here.

• The Picayune Sentinel preview: Mondays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

Al B. — This letter appeared in the Tribune on Wednesday:

Since 1970, four governors, more than 30 Chicago aldermen and dozens of other officials have gone to prison on corruption charges in our state. What else do all of these individuals have in common? The answer is that not one of them was prosecuted by the Illinois attorney general's office or the Cook County state's attorney's office. All were federally prosecuted. Until our voters, with unbiased guidance from the media, seriously vet the candidates for these local and state prosecutorial offices, don't expect that to change. — William I Desmond, Chicago

Let me suggest a Picayune Sentinel column on important factors for the lack of state and county corruption prosecutions. This would shine a light on one of our state’s more important, fundamental problems. Our prosecutors do not effectively impeach unethical behaviors.

I’ve heard this often from readers over the years, usually as an accusation against Democratic attorneys general, though I like to point out that when Republican Jim Ryan held the office from 1995 to 2003, he also didn’t pursue corruption cases.

The reason such cases are delegated to the U.S. attorney’s office was summarized by my former colleague Tim Jones in “A Corruption-fighting Attorney General? Easy to Say, Harder to Do,” a 2018 report for the Better Government Association:

Illinois law … grants the state’s top lawyer broad power to use a statewide grand jury to investigate crimes regarding drugs, gun trafficking, gangs, child prostitution and terrorism. (But) missing from that list is public corruption. …

The cumbersome procedural path (a state attorney general) usually must follow under Illinois law is in line with the legal reality in most states that opt to give federal and local prosecutors first crack in matters involving corruption.

Only Rhode Island, Delaware and Alaska give their attorneys general exclusive criminal jurisdiction, according to the National Association of Attorneys General. In six other states, Connecticut among them, attorneys general have no criminal jurisdiction, the group says. The rest, Illinois included, impose varying levels of impediments.

There is no “national mandate for attorneys general to do anything about corruption,” said (James) Tierney, (the former attorney general of Maine and now a lecturer at Harvard Law School) who has taught courses on the role of state attorneys general. …

Federal prosecutors are at the center of most corruption investigations in Illinois and elsewhere because they have more resources and experience as well as an arms-length distance from local political pressure. …

In Illinois, the investigative process would be complicated, if not compromised, by the fact that the attorney general is elected, the director of the State Police serves at the pleasure of the governor, and the pursestrings for both are controlled by the legislature.

Mary Schmich: What to read when the world’s gone mad

My former colleague Mary Schmich posts column-like thoughts most Tuesdays on Facebook. Here is this week’s offering:

A few days ago the great Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown—who was instrumental in exposing the sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein—tweeted a thought that made a whole lot of people, to put it nicely, raise an eyebrow.

It appears she has deleted the tweet, but she said, approximately, that she didn’t understand how with all the chaos in the world right now anyone could read fiction. She said she was reading non-fiction to try to understand what was going on. She noted that she knew this view would make some people hate her.

She was right on one thing. A torrent of objection roared her way, with fiction lovers defending their preference as if she had stabbed them in the heart. Some people were nice about it, but others were just mean because, hey, Twitter.

I was among the people who (without comment) raised an eyebrow. I generally prefer fiction to non-fiction. Fiction is often better at making ideas readable, at evoking truths that go beyond facts, at feeding the heart as well as the head.

At the same time, fiction can whet your appetite for facts. Last summer and fall, I committed to reading the fat 19th Century European novels I’d never gotten around to. I grew addicted to the footnotes, which explained the “real” history portrayed in the novels.

I don't have the patience for fat history books on 19th Century Western Europe, but the combo of fiction and footnotes helped me see how that age led directly to this one, how our eras aren’t as different as we imagine. Before there was Donald Trump, there was his doppelganger, Augustus Melmotte, in Anthony Trollope's "The Way We Live Now." Read it and be amazed.

I know people who say they “don’t have time for fiction.” These aren’t people who don’t have time to read, which, it’s important to say, not everyone does; many people are consumed by work or taking care of others. I'm talking about people who devote hours to news and “opinion"--and Netflix--and still disdain fiction.

I used to try to woo the fiction-haters to my team. I stopped.

Fiction. Non-fiction. It’s a preference. That’s all.

And yet…

I knew what Julie Brown meant about the need to read non-fiction right now, to try to understand better how we reached a point that a Russian megalomaniac holds the world by the throat. It’s why I went to Barnes & Noble and bought Masha Gessen’s biography of Putin, “The Man Without a Face.” It’s why I opened a dusty bookcase and plucked out a guide to Russia that I bought for a 2001 visit to Moscow and read the history of the czars and Lenin and Stalin.

Is the world any better because a lot of us are doing a cram course in the geo-politics of Russia and Ukraine? I wouldn’t swear by that but I, as one small person, feel a little better knowing a little more.

We read for different reasons, and our reasons change from time to time. We read for fun, for duty, for comfort, to escape this world and live in another. We read to help us understand how to live. To understand how other people live. Sometimes we read just for the beauty of language.

Reading, whether it’s fiction or non, is one way we gain some sense of control in an anarchic world.

The day after her original tweet on fiction, Julie Brown tweeted her regret:

“Appreciated all your input on the topic of fiction. I fear I stated my feelings at an emotional time when — as tonight — I’m watching so many people suffering in Ukraine — I obviously didn’t express myself in the best way. “

Lots of Americans are struggling over what to do about the horrors the Russian army is inflicting on Ukraine. Godknows, reading isn't going to fix things. But Brown expressed her frustration in her way, and I hope she takes consolation in knowing that she made a lot of people think not just about fiction but about how we're handling this moment.

And it brought to mind a line from the novel I’m currently reading. It’s by Patricia Lockwood, called “No One Is Talking About This.” I’m tempted to call it genius, though it probably makes sense only to people who are on Twitter.

The narrator is a woman who’s addicted to social media but tragically aware of its perils. At one point, she is speaking to a class.

“Your attention is holy,” she tells them. “It’s your soul spending itself.”

A brilliant line. But even as she speaks it, her phone is buzzing in her back pocket alerting her to a barrage of responses to something she posted online.

The photo above is of some books I’ve read and liked in the past year. Fiction and non.— Mary Schmich

Minced Words: The Rascals lay wagers on where the new Chicago casino might be

Which of the many newsworthy topics covered in this week’s early edition of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast caused Heather Cherone of WTTW-Ch. 11 to say, “I feel dead inside about it”? Listen and find out! At the end of the show I predict the final score of Thursday night’s NCAA men’s tournament game between Michigan and Villanova.

The Wolverines had a generally disappointing season and just squeaked into the tournament, but the team is loaded with talent. They could have been — and might now be playing like — a top 10 team. Villanova finished the season ranked sixth. Do not place wagers based on my hopeful forecast.

Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can now hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.

Re: Tweets

I had to laugh at this one:

Will "Meatsicle" Weldon@oldmanweldon

The other morning my five year old logged on, then asked me "Papa, why would you bring me into a world so cruel that it spawned these disgusting morons with their Substacks?" And I said nothing, for I had no answer.

2:32 PM · Mar 18, 2022

---

2 Reposts · 14 Likes

And I wanted to share this visual tweet from Tuesday’s bonus issue with my entire subscriber base:

One of the benefits of becoming a paid subscriber, along with access to the comment threads, bonus issues and the warm feeling of helping to support this independent effort, is a regular look at the best visual tweets — Twitter jokes that don’t fit the format of the weekly poll but are still quite amusing.

Speaking of the regular poll, here are this week’s nominees for Tweet of the Week:

• I am neither short nor stout. I am a teapot beyond your understanding. — @Benjones2Jones

• Thieves in my building have been breaking into apartments on every floor. This is so wrong on so many levels. — @AndyJokedAgain

• Make someone happy today. Leave them alone and mind your own business. — @LeftOf_Normal

• “My pronouns are them/thar.” …Old timey prospector. — @SamGrittner

• People who stand the minute the plane lands are the same ones who bought up all the toilet paper. — @SalorMoon_Shine

• I’m starting a true crime podcast but I don’t have time to do research so I’m just committing the crimes myself. — @TheAndrewNadeau

• I keep a bluetooth earpiece in when I ask someone out so when they say no I can point to my ear and say "I wasn't talking to you, so get over yourself." — @MelvinofYork

• “Words” that might force me to break up with you: Upmost. Nucular. Expresso. Excetra. Liberry. Heighth. Expecially. — @UnFitz

• Personally, I think making a mountain out of a mole hill is a really splendid achievement. — @GianDoh

• If anybody asks, we met teaching Sunday school. — @topaz_kell

I’m going to be making an effort going forward to segregate the edgier political tweets from the others to create separate polls, though I’m finding that the distinctions isn’t always obvious. Some will find Sam Grittner’s tweet about pronouns to be political, for example, though Grittner’s liberal bona fides are strong.

Click here to vote in the poll. For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Today’s Tune

"Tenting on the Old Camp Ground" was written in 1863 by Walter Kittredge (1834-1905), a New Hampshire musician who had received notice that he’d been drafted to fight for the Union in the Civil War. He wrote the song, sometimes called “Tenting Tonight,” at a time when “the upbeat patriotic music of 1861 was replaced by sadder, more sentimental songs as the reality of the terrible cost of the Civil War set in,” according to Iron Brigadier.

The song became very popular with both civilians and soldiers on both sides, and thousands of copies of the sheet music were sold. It remained popular after the war and was often sung at soldier reunions and at Memorial Day (originally, Decoration Day) events. It’s still appropriate for Memorial Day today as the lyrics express the feelings of soldiers who have fought in any war.

It’s a powerful anti-war song for its emphasis on young soldiers surrounded by carnage and yearning at the end of each day for peace and home.

Here’s the third verse followed by the chorus:

We are tired of war on the old camp ground,

Many are dead and gone,

Of the brave and true who've left their homes,

Others been wounded long.

Many are the hearts that are weary tonight,

Wishing for the war to cease;

Many are the hearts that are looking for the right,

To see the dawn of peace.

Tenting to-night,

Tenting to-night,

Tenting on the old camp ground.

Some sources have the lyric as “hearts looking for the light,” which makes more sense in my view given that the next line refers to “the dawn of peace,” but most versions have hearts “looking for the right.”

The Picayune Sentinel is a reader-supported publication. Simply subscribe to receive new posts each Thursday. To support my work, receive bonus issues most Tuesdays and join the zesty commenting community, become a paid subscriber. Thanks for reading!