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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=Roslin Castle.mp3
+|f_track=GroomsTune.mp3
-|f_pdf=Roslin Castle.pdf
+|f_pdf=Bonaparte Retreat.pdf
-|f_artwork=Roslin.jpg
+|f_artwork=GroomsPension.jpg
-|f_tune_name=Roslin Castle
+|f_tune_name=Bonaparte's Retreat
-|f_track_title=Roslin_Castle
+|f_track_title=Bonaparte's Retreat_(1)
-|f_section=X5
+|f_section=abc
-|f_played_by=[https://soundcloud.com/robmackillop Rob MacKillop]
+|f_played_by=[https://soundcloud.com/dollyparton Dolly Parton]
-|f_notes= Roslin Castle, Midlothian.
+|f_notes=To this day, North Carolina mountain fiddlers will refer to Bonaparte's Retreat as "Grooms' Tune".
-|f_caption=The tune was the melody most often associated with funerals during the Revolution, and notes that legend has it that it was played by Scottish bagpipers stationed in New York at the time, in honor of the castle at Roslyn, Midlothian, Scotland.
+|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/robmackillop/20-roslin-castle 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=[[Roslin_Castle | '''Roslin Castle''']]
+|f_article=[[Bonaparte's Retreat_(1) | '''Bonaparte's Retreat''']]
-Rosyln Castle does in fact exist in Angus, Scotland, and has since the early 14th century (c. 1304), when it was built by Sir William St. Clair soon after the Battle of Rosslyn, when, as part of the Scottish War of Independence, the English army of Edward I was decimated by the Scots.
-It is a castle of the rock and waterfall, lying high above the north bank of the River Esk a few miles south-west of Edinburgh, and features a small but magnificent chapel founded in 1446 by the Earl of Orkney and Roslin.
+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.
-Added to through the years, it survived two fires but was ultimately destroyed by Cromwell's troops in 1650. The heyday of the edifice was in the 14th and 15th centuries, where it has been likened to a 'Camelot' of the era.
+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.
-Neil (1991) remarks "It is on record that one of the princesses of the castle had 75 ladies-in-waiting and 53 of them were also members of the nobility, all of whom were beautifully dressed in gowns of velvet and silk and who also wore gold and other jewels.
+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.
-When this princess traveled to her house in Edinburgh, she was accompanied by 200 men on horseback and, if at night, by a further 80 carrying torches.
+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.
-There is also the legend that the castle is haunted by the "Sleeping Lady" who guards a vast treasure. If awakened by the sound of a trumpet, to be heard in the lower apartments, she will appear and reveal the treasure, whereupon the castle would rise from its ruins to its former glory."
+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.'''
 }}