Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Dixie" in English language version.
There is such a multitude of threads to the fabric called Dixie that official organizations draw boundaries enclosing anywhere from nine to seventeen states and call the region the South.
In early 1861, Maryland was walking a tightrope between the Union and the Confederacy. In addition to being physically between the two sides, Maryland depended equally on both the North and the South for its economy. Although Maryland had always leaned toward the south culturally, sympathies in the state were as much pro-Union as they were pro-Confederate. Reflecting that division and the feeling of many Marylanders that they just wanted to be left alone, the state government would not declare for either side.
So Where is the Border? It begins with an imaginary line from Cambridge, Md. to Fredericksburg, Va., follows the Rappahannock River up into the Piedmont, across the Baptist Line in West Virginia, along the Ohio River, and along the Baptist Line in southern Illinois.Archived November 16, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved March 7, 2025.
Based on all of these new findings, we can reconstruct a plausible, if circuitous, scenario for the real birth of Dixie. New York City children took the name of the Mason-Dixon line and converted it into a game involving their own demarcation between North and South, with Dixon given the familiar nickname of Dixie. Then [Dan] Emmett [the composer of the song Dixie], who was living in New York at the time that he wrote his minstrel songs, could have picked up on 'Dixie's Land' from the game. Emmett may very well have had other sources of inspiration, given that, as Wilton and others have observed, 'Dixie' was also the name of a blackface character in a minstrel skit dating back to 1850. But the North–South delineation used by children at play currently stands as the likeliest source for Dixie.
So Where is the Border? It begins with an imaginary line from Cambridge, Md. to Fredericksburg, Va., follows the Rappahannock River up into the Piedmont, across the Baptist Line in West Virginia, along the Ohio River, and along the Baptist Line in southern Illinois.Archived November 16, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved March 7, 2025.
