"Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine"

Part of a set; Road to California, All the Way to Galway, Year-End Two-Step, and Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine.

Good with Mandolin.

The Fiddler's Companion lists three tunes of that name, the first one appears to be the one we want, although they all seem to have similarities. A side note - #'s 2 and 3 are very similar to "Mr./Paddy McGuire".

Of this tune the Fiddler's Companion says that;

The first part of the tune shows up in several melodies from Ireland, Scotland and England; these variants include the Irish “Centenary March� and “An Comhra Donn,� and the Scottish “Caledonian March.� Barry Callaghan (2007) says the core tune was current as a military march in the Peninsular War, and probably earlier, although he cites no source for this assertion. Samuel Bayard (1944) was familiar with “Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine� as a common march tune in his primary collecting area of western Pennsylvania, and one which circulated under a variety of names including (in Fayette County) "Bruce's March" and (in Greene County) "The Star of Bethlehem." A Pennsylvania bandmaster gave Bayard the name "Ranahan's March," which he said commemorated a local bandmaster. As with several of the other 'Bonaparte'-titled tunes it is sometimes confused with similar names; for example, Bayard once heard it played by a New Jersey fiddler who gave it the ubiquitous name of "Bonaparte's Retreat." Fiddler Mack Snodderly played a slow, dirge-like version of the tune and called it "Dying on the Field of Battle."