The original title of the song was "I Wish I was in Dixie's Land," and was composed on April 4, 1859 by 44-year-old New York City songwriter Daniel Decatur Emmett. He also wrote "Old Dan Tucker." Emmett wrote "I Wish I was in Dixie's Land" for his minstral show at the time, called Bryant's Minstrels. It first became a hit in the North. After it was published as sheet music in 1860 it also became popular in the South. Lincoln and Davis liked the song so much that they both had it played at their respective inaugurations. However, it did not really become the southern classic until much later. The south's favorite song during the war was "The Bonnie Blue Flag." Near the close of the war "Dixie" became more popular. That the author of "The Bonnie Blue Flag" left for Philadelphia certainly played a big part. But also, during the military occupation that followed the Civil War, singing "The Bonnie Blue Flag" was forbidden, so many southerners simply turned to singing "Dixie." Thus it became firmly entrenched in southern history. Emmett was not happy about that. He had never written it to glorify the South and was mortified at how it had come to be used. Emmett supported emancipation before it became popular -- his father had helped found the Underground Railroad. It was this that probably led Emmett to form the first minstrel troupe, called the The Virginia Minstrels.

Where Emmett came up with the term "Dixie's Land" is still a mystery. One explanation is that it refers to the Pennsylvania-Maryland boundary surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by two British astronomers, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, to settle a dispute between the Calvert family of Maryland and the Penn family of Pennsylvania. By the start of the Civil War it had come to designate the boundry between free and slave states, though Maryland (a slave state) never seceded from the Union. However, getting Dixie from Dixon seems to be a stretch for most historians. Another explanation is that the Citizen's Bank and Trust Company of Louisiana had $10 bank notes engraved on the reverse with "Dix," the French word for "ten." According to some accounts, people started calling Louisiana "Dix’s Land," then later "Dixie." However, it is more likely about a kind land owner named Dixie. In Derby, England there is a house called 'Normanton House' that used to belong to the Dixie family -- a wealthy family who paid the passage for many people to make the journey to America. Because of a change in fortunes, one of the Dixies emigrated to America and became a prominent land owner. One account has him emigrating to the south and the workers he took with him had to pick cotton -- which was harder work than they were used to. While picking cotton in the fields they used to chant, "Want to go back to old Dixie Land," where their lives had been better.

Emmett lived in Mount Vernon, Ohio and frequently visited relatives who lived next door to a family called the Snowdens. Six of the Snowden children, including Ben and Lew, were musicians. Supposedly at the graves of Ben and Lew Snowden there is a marker reading, "They taught 'Dixie' to Dan Emmett." There is no historical evidence to support this claim. However, folk music has long had an oral tradition. Ben and Lew Snowden may have sang it as part of their heritage, relating to a kind man named Dixie, and inspired Emmett to put the song to paper.