Beadle's Dime Song Book No. 4

This is Beadle's Dime Song Book No. 4 (1860), a collection of comic and sentimental popular songs. The volume contains approximately eighty songs of varied genres: romantic ballads ("Maud Adair and I," "Don't Cry So, Norah, Darling"), domestic narratives ("Ben Fisher and Wife," celebrating a contented farmer's family), patriotic pieces ("A National Song," "Columbia Rules the Sea"), Irish-themed songs ("Paddy on the Canal," "Sprig of Shillelagh"), nautical numbers ("Ship A-hoy," "O God! Preserve the Mariner"), and nostalgia pieces ("The Old Brown Cot," "Cottage by the Sea"). Many songs emphasize themes of home, lost love, aging couples, and rural contentment. The collection includes traditional material ("The Harp That Once Through Tara's Hall") alongside contemporary compositions, with musical copyrights credited to Firth, Pond & Co. Published by Beadle and Company at ten cents, this songbook represents popular American vocal entertainment of the Civil War era.