The boys were kept busy watching the many activities. They saw officers on horseback galloping importantly in all directions. They saw men working furiously building large frame barracks for the soldiers or huge corrals for the thousands of horses and mules.
And now Philip’s father, Antonio Sousa, had quit his place as trombone player in the Marine Band and joined the Navy to do his part in fighting the war.
Bands were playing everywhere, but Philip was so fond of music he never grew tired of hearing them. He couldn’t keep away from a band or keep his feet from stepping in time when he was near one. Every day Philip Sousa slipped out of the house and attached himself to the first line of blue-clad soldiers he could find. He ran alongside them until he found the band. Sometimes he followed them all day long.
During the next few years the young boy saw many unusual sights. He saw people gay over some battles and sad over others. And then one awful morning Philip awoke to find the streets filled with crowds weeping instead of laughing. He saw the Capital city draped in black and all the flags hanging down low. When he asked about this, he was told that the flags were at half-mast because President Lincoln had been shot.
It was at Lincoln’s funeral that Philip first realized how sad music could be. The mournful sound of the muffled drums and the solemn, minor strains of music played by the bands marching in the procession, touched his young heart.
But the war scene that made the deepest impression upon Philip was the grand parade of the victorious armies. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and countless bands marched in a procession so long that it took two days to pass the White House. Young as he was, the boy made up his mind that some day he would lead a marching band like these.
The war was ended. Antonio Sousa had come home and returned to his place in the Marine Band. The family went back to their normal way of living.
Antonio Sousa was of Portuguese parentage although he had been born in Spain. When a young man he had come to America, to New York City. He met and married Elizabeth Trinkhaus from Bavaria, who was visiting relatives in Brooklyn. The young couple went to live in Washington, D. C., and in a small brick house at 617 G Street, S.E. John Philip Sousa had been born. There he grew to manhood “in the shadow of the Capitol,” to use his own words.
The out-of-doors appealed to Philip; he liked to play with other boys and go hunting and fishing with his father. But above everything else the boy loved music. He was happy when he was allowed to visit the nearby Marine Barracks during rehearsals. The bandsmen liked him and often let him play the triangle or the cymbals.
When he was very young, Philip had begun to study the violin with an old Spanish friend of his father. Later he studied in an Academy of Music conducted by a son of his first teacher.