"THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS." "The Yellow Rose of Texas" is a song about how a slave named Emily Morgan helped win the battle of San Jacinto,^qv the decisive battle in the Texas Revolution,^qv on April 21, 1836. According to legend, Emily was a mulatto slave owned by Col. James Morgan,^qv of New Washington, Texas, who was kidnapped by soldiers under the orders of Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna.^qv She was reportedly brought to Santa Anna's tent, where she entertained him sexually throughout the day of the battle. The distracted general supposedly failed to put his troops on alert, and when the battle began, the Texans caught the Mexicans by surprise. In fact, however, "Emily Morgan" was a free-born black woman named Emily D. West,^qv who worked as a housekeeper at the New Washington Association's^qv hotel. No evidence supports the story of a tryst with Santa Anna.

One of the earliest versions of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" dates back to the first administration of Sam Houston,^qv who became president of the Republic of Texas^qv in 1836. A handwritten manuscript of the song, now in the A. Henry Moss Papers in the Center for American History^qv at the University of Texas at Austin,^qv was allegedly delivered to one E. A. Jones. This early version, possibly written around the time of the battle of San Jacinto, tells the story of a black man who yearns for his sweetheart. During that era, "yellow" was used to describe people of mixed-race origins, especially mulattoes, and the rose was a common symbol of young womanhood. Because the song was poorly written and full of spelling errors, at least one scholar believes that it could have been composed by an uneducated person, possibly one of Morgan's slaves.

The first published edition of the song was copyrighted by Firth, Pond and Company of New York on September 2, 1858. This edition states that the song and chorus were arranged and composed for vaudeville performer Charles H. Brown by someone with the initials of "J. K." The lyrics are almost identical to those in the handwritten manuscript. During the Civil War^qv the song became popular with Confederate soldiers, though some of the lyrics were changed. A version sung by troops under the command of Gen. John B. Hood,^qv for instance, later recorded in The Dell Book of Great American Folk Songs, substituted "soldier" for "darky," and added a reference to a recent military defeat: "The gallant Hood of Texas played hell in Tennessee."

Such modifications aside, the song remained relatively unchanged throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1930, Texas composer David Guion^qv transcribed the song from memory, inserting his own distinct melodic effects while taking care to preserve the song's character. Guion's version of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" became popular, and a second transcription of the song was released in 1936 to commemorate the Texas Centennial.^qv By World War II^qv the former "Negro folksong" had become a standard, and was popular with military personnel serving overseas. The song became even more popular in 1955, when Mitch Miller recorded it. Arranged by Don George and recorded for Columbia Records, this new version was tailored to the tastes of the dancing audience at the time. Miller retained some phrases from the original song manuscript, but eliminated some of its folk elements. In 1956 John W. Schaum arranged a boogie-woogie transcription. This version of the song was suitable for elementary piano students, and, over the years, its appeal extended to people of all ages.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Martha Anne Turner, The Yellow Rose of Texas: Her Saga and Her Song (Austin: Shoal Creek, 1976).

Juan Carlos Rodríguez