Information About the Band

The 12th NHV Regiment Serenade Band recreates a typical small brass band that was a standard part of a Civil War Regiment. The musicians, performing period music on period instruments, appear in typical Union Army uniform and dress of the day.

The band was formed in 1999 by musicians from New Hampshire who wanted to combine their love of history and music. Since that time, members of the band have been able to find and have restored some rare brass musical instruments dating back to the 1850’s, including over-the-shoulder, bell front, and upright saxhorns and keyed brass horns. In addition to these original brass instruments of the period, music played by the band comes from regimental band books of the Civil War from groups and units including the 3rd and 4th New Hampshire regiments, the Manchester Cornet Band, the 25th Massachusetts regiment, Squires Cornet Band and the 26th North Carolina Regiment Band.

The music performed by the band includes waltzes, polkas, gallops, quicksteps, and love songs of the time, with such titles as Dixie’s Land, Lorena, Slumber Polka, Colonel Meeker’s Quickstep, Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp Ground, and the Port Royal Gallop.

Concert programs include commentary on the instruments and the many roles bandsmen performed during the war including providing entertainment for the troops, playing for the wounded in hospitals, serenading the officers at night, and providing music for various military functions.

The 12th NHV Band has played for Civil War reenactments and historical events at locations in New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts including the Manchester NH Millyard Museum, The Woodman Institute in Dover, NH, The Mount Washington Resort Hotel, Mountain View Grand Resort, and for many historical societies in the region.