Copperheads and Pearly Gates

Abstract

Frank L. Bristow, Elisha Green's other assailant in 1883, was born in Bethel, Illinois in 1845. His father, a Methodist preacher, had pronounced Southern sympathies, running for local office under the Copperhead banner. Nevertheless, his son Frank enlisted in the Union Army in 1862; his two brothers fought for the South. Bristow served as bandmaster and saw little fighting, though he marched with Sherman. After the war he taught music at a succession of female academies in Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri. He began to publish music for piano and voice. In February, Gould hired him to teach music and calisthenics at Millersburg. He led the choir at the local Methodist church and accompanied them, his wife, and daughter, on the organ. He and Gould collaborated on a hymn about heaven set to Stephen Collins Foster's "Sewanee River." In the summer he performed at religious camp meetings.