Come to the Bower was an early Nineteenth Century minstrel tune that made the rounds of stages and taverns across the United States. It is a simple story of seduction in which a young rake is promising a delightful location for a tryst he has created in some secluded and shady place. It is a bawdy descendent of a slightly earlier Irish patriot tune, Come to the Bower, which invited volunteers to come to the Emerald Isle to free the nation from British occupation after the failed 1798 rebellion.

The version presented here, the American minstrel tune, is taken from manuscript sheet music in the holdings of the American Antiquarian Society and is performed by Kay Frazier of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, and Marc Sanders of Abilene Christian University on piano.

The tune came to be associated with the April 21, 1836 Battle of San Jacinto because, as the tale is told, it was part of the repertoire of two teenaged Texian musicians pressed into service to provide martial music for the advance. Thus, Sam Houston and his army marched toward destiny in step to a slightly off-color tavern tune that magically captured the spirit of the age.