Biography
This Irish-American bandmaster wrote such pieces as “Freedom on the Old Plantation,” “The Spirit of the North,” and “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” After forming Gilmore’s Grand Boston Band he led the ensemble into Union service for the duration of the Civil War. Once his military obligations ended, he turned to enormous festivals meant to celebrate peace, beginning with the National Peace Jubilee. Both the crowds and the venues proved immense, as did the instrumental and vocal forces he assembled; Ole Bull directed a choir of ten thousand while two hundred violinists played beneath him. At the World Peace Jubilee of 1872 the assembled singers numbered twenty thousand and the orchestra two thousand, with one hundred firemen pounding real anvils during Verdi’s “Anvil Chorus.” When the combined forces threatened to overwhelm him, Gilmore introduced electrically triggered cannons that had been programmed into the score in advance, restoring order. He had first employed this device to useful effect at a large band festival held in New Orleans in 1864.