As the title indicates, this was the second of four marches the young Charles Ives wrote for the Danbury, CT, town band, which was directed by his father, George Ives. The first was the Holiday Quickstep, Kv 1, written when Ives was 12 and regarded as his first finished composition.

This second march has an original tune as its main melody. The form of the familiar American-style march often features a countermelody to be played first by itself and then over the main melody. Ives used the traditional tune "Son of a Gambolier" for his refrain. Ives made a piano version of the march, cataloged by John Kirkpatrick as Kx 4, and also, in 1895, wrote his own setting of the Son of a Gambolier, Kz 29, which he published as No. 54 of 114 Songs. In that publication he classed it as one of Five Street Songs and Pieces.

This march version is vigorous, melodious, swaggering, and cute. It is well-constructed and quite worthy of comparison with the work of the general run of American march composers.

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