Stephen C. Foster wrote this song to be sung by the Buchanan Glee Club, a group he co-founded to perform in support of Democratic candidates in the 1856 election. A book of minutes detailing some of the group’s activities survives in the Foster Hall Collection. Foster drafted the lyrics in his sketchbook (see the links to manuscript pages below), and they were first published in the Pittsburgh Post during election season on September 29, 1856. On September 4, 1885, Foster’s brother Morrison Foster entered the song for copyright. It was then first published with music in the Pittsburgh Dispatch on September 20, 1885.