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Latest revision as of 19:03, 12 January 2025

According to Blue Ridge Mountain local history the tune was known in the Civil War era. Geoffrey Cantrell, writing in the Asheville Citizen-Times of Feb., 23, 2000 relates the story of the execution of three men by the Confederate Home Guard on April 10th, 1865, the day after Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.

That news would not have been known to them, given the difficulty with communications at that time. It is documented that Henry Grooms, his brother George and his brother-in-law Mitchell Caldwell, all of north Haywood County, North Carolina, were taken prisoner by the Guard under the command of one Captain Albert Teague-no one knows why, but the area had been ravaged by scalawags and bushwackers, and the populace had suffered numerous raids of family farms by Union troops hunting provisions.

One theory is that the men were accused of being Confederate deserters who, perhaps knowing the war was nearly over, had aided the Union cause in some way. There was much back-and-forth guerilla warfare, however, and the village of Waynesville had been burned two months earlier (by Unionists), and the citizenry was beleaguered and anxious. Caldwell and the Grooms brothers were captured in the Big Creek section of Haywood County, close to the Tennessee border.

Cantrell writes: "The group traveled toward Cataloochee Valley and Henry Grooms, clutching his fiddle and bow, was asked by his captors to play a tune. Realizing he was performing for his own firing squad Grooms struck up Bonaparte's Retreat," his favorite tune.

When he finished the three men were lined up against an oak tree and shot, the bodies left where they fell. Henry's wife gathered the bodies and buried them in a single grave in the family plot at Sutton Cemetery No. 1 in the Mount Sterling community, the plain headstone reading only "Murdered."

The original source for the story is George A. Miller, in his book Cemeteries and Family Graveyards in Haywood County, N.C.

...more at: Bonaparte's Retreat - full Score(s) and Annotations

X:1 T:Bonaparte's Retreat [1] M:C L:1/8 Q:"Andante" N:DDAd tuning N:Drone strings throughout. B:Ford - Traditional Music in America (1940) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:D % V:1 clef=treble name="0." [V:1] [G,2D2] [G,D]F [D2A2]F2|(ED) (EF) (GF) (EF)|[G,2D2][G,D]F [D2A2]F2|(ED) (EF) [G,3D3]:| "accelerando"(3A/B/c/|d2 d>f d2 (3A/B/c/|(dB) (AG) (FD) (3A/B/c/|d2 d>f d[D2A2]|(FD) (EF) (GF) (EF)| [G,D][G,D]F [D2A2]F2|(ED) (EF) (GF) (EF)|[G,2D2][G,D]F [D2A2]F2|(ED) (EF) [G,3D3]z2|| (3A/B/c/|[G,2D2]d>"poco"f d2 (3A/B/c/|[G,D]>B (AG) (FD) "poco"(3A/B/c/|[G,2D2]|d>f d2A2|(F>D) (EF) (GF) (EF)| [G,2D2][GD]F [D2A2]F2|"Piu moto"(ED) (EF) (GF) (EF)|[G,2D2] {G,D]F [D2A2]F2|(ED) (EF) [G,4D4]|"Coda"[A8e8]|| M:2/4 L:1/8 "Allegro"(g/e/g/e/ bg|g/e/f/g/ a/g/f)|(g/e/g/e/ bg|1 f/e/f/g/ [A2e2]):| |2f/e/f/g/ [Ae](3A/B/c/||"Allegretto"d2 d>f d2 (3A/B/c/|(dB) (AG) (FD) (3A/B/c/|d2 d>f d2A2|(FD) (EF) (GF) (EF)|

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 {{SheetMusic
-|f_track=Gillie Callum.mp3
+|f_track=GroomsTune.mp3
-|f_pdf=Gillie Callum.pdf
+|f_pdf=Bonaparte Retreat.pdf
-|f_artwork=Sandyskinner.jpg
+|f_artwork=GroomsPension.jpg
-|f_tune_name=Gillie Callum
+|f_tune_name=Bonaparte's Retreat
-|f_track_title=Gillie Callum
+|f_track_title=Bonaparte's Retreat_(1)
-|f_section=X1
+|f_section=abc
-|f_played_by=[https://soundcloud.com/user-300042645 Epiton]
+|f_played_by=[https://soundcloud.com/dollyparton Dolly Parton]
-|f_notes= James Scott Skinner's brother, Alexander "Sandy" Skinner, performing a sword dance while accompanying himself on the fiddle, c. 1880's.
+|f_notes=To this day, North Carolina mountain fiddlers will refer to Bonaparte's Retreat as "Grooms' Tune".
-|f_caption=Scottish tradition has it that it was first danced by a king of the Scots, Malcolm Canmore (O'Neill says the name is an English version of the Gaelic Callum a chinn mhoir, which "signifies as 'Callum of the big head'), in celebration of his victory at the Battle of Dunsinane in the year 1054.
+|f_caption=The last card in his file is from 1893. His widow was probably years obtaining a widow's pension. She had to have "deserted" cleared from his record. A notation on that last card says :{{break|2}}
-|f_source=[https://soundcloud.com/user-300042645/gillie-callum Soundcloud]
+"''The charge of desertion against this man has been removed. It has been determined from evidence presented, that he was killed by the enemy, April 22, 1864, while absent on recruiting service in Haywood County, NC''".
+|f_source=[https://soundcloud.com/dollyparton/grooms-tune-bonapartes-retreat Soundcloud]
 |f_pix=420
 |f_picpix=200
-|f_article=[[Gillie Callum | '''Gillie Callum''']]
+|f_article=[[Bonaparte's Retreat_(1) | '''Bonaparte's Retreat''']]
-One of the core tunes of Scottish repertoire, sometimes published (especially in older collections) with numerous variation sets. The earliest record of the tune is in David Young's '''Drummond Castle Manuscript, Part 2''' (1734, No. 10), in the possession of the Earl of Ancaster at Drummond Castle, sometimes called the '''Duke of Perth MS''' because of the inscription.  Young also included the tune in one of his subsequent manuscript collections, '''The MacFarlane Manuscript, Part 2''' (c. 1740, No. 101, p. 236), albeit under the title "[[Cuttie Spoon]]." John Glen (1891) finds the reel in Robert Bremner's '''2nd Collection or Scots Reels or Country Dances''' (London, 1768, p. 108) under the title "Keelum Kallum taa fein." "Gillie Callum" retained its popularity into the next century, and J.S. Skinner, who was a dancing master as well as a celebrated violinist, taught the dance at such places as Elgin and Balmoral (where among other dances he had four children dance Gillie Callum "in a masterly style, such as has not been witnessed in this locality before").
+According to Blue Ridge Mountain local history the tune was known in the Civil War era. Geoffrey Cantrell, writing in the '''Asheville Citizen-Times''' of Feb., 23, 2000 relates the story of the execution of three men by the Confederate Home Guard on April 10th, 1865, the day after Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.
+That news would not have been known to them, given the difficulty with communications at that time. It is documented that Henry Grooms, his brother George and his brother-in-law Mitchell Caldwell, all of north Haywood County, North Carolina, were taken prisoner by the Guard under the command of one Captain Albert Teague-no one knows why, but the area had been ravaged by scalawags and bushwackers, and the populace had suffered numerous raids of family farms by Union troops hunting provisions.
+One theory is that the men were accused of being Confederate deserters who, perhaps knowing the war was nearly over, had aided the Union cause in some way. There was much back-and-forth guerilla warfare, however, and the village of Waynesville had been burned two months earlier (by Unionists), and the citizenry was beleaguered and anxious. Caldwell and the Grooms brothers were captured in the Big Creek section of Haywood County, close to the Tennessee border.
+Cantrell writes: "The group traveled toward Cataloochee Valley and Henry Grooms, clutching his fiddle and bow, was asked by his captors to play a tune. Realizing he was performing for his own firing squad Grooms struck up Bonaparte's Retreat," his favorite tune.
+When he finished the three men were lined up against an oak tree and shot, the bodies left where they fell. Henry's wife gathered the bodies and buried them in a single grave in the family plot at Sutton Cemetery No. 1 in the Mount Sterling community, the plain headstone reading only "Murdered."
+The original source for the story is George A. Miller, in his book '''Cemeteries and Family Graveyards in Haywood County, N.C.'''
 }}