“Lorena” is a sentimental parlor ballad of the years just before the Civil War. Its words were written in 1856 by the Reverend Henry D.L. Webster, reportedly in the aftermath of a broken engagement; he set down a poem of lost love and gave the woman the invented, musical-sounding name Lorena. The composer Joseph P. Webster — no relation — supplied the melody, and the song was published in 1857.
“Lorena” became one of the most beloved songs of the Civil War, sung by homesick soldiers on both the Union and Confederate sides. Its lyric of separation and faded years — a love recalled across long distance and lost time — spoke directly to men far from home, and the song’s mournful tenderness made it one of the era’s defining ballads of longing.
The song long outlived the war, passing into country and old-time tradition.
