Re: more on civil war harps

[Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx>]

On Apr 12, 2004, at 4:00 PM, rainbowjimmy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>
>
>
> There's a good article on Hohner's business located here:
> http://es.oupjournals.org/cgi/reprint/2/2/338
>
> According to the article, Hohner made 700 harmonicas in 1857, by 1867 
> they were
> were making 22,000 harmonicas. Apparently Hohner gave emigrants boxes 
> full of
> harmonicas. When they landed in America, they sold them to their 
> compatriots
> and mailed Hohner the money. The article states there were no American
> harmonica manufactures then-the reeds had to be hand cut and hand 
> tuned, it was
> specialized labor and there were only so many people that knew how to 
> do this.
>
> So chances are, there weren't a lot of Civil War harmonicas, they were 
> mostly
> played by German immigrants, and they were most likely Hohner 
> harmonicas.
>
> Rainbow Jimmy
>
  Not disputing a single word of your post. Just one addition. German 
(and Irish) immigrants were drafted into the Union army in DROVES. The 
Union army had more soldiers that didn't speak English than the 
Confederacy had soldiers.
  smo-jo