"Hell on the Wabash" is an American reel in E Minor. Some versions are in A Minor or A Major. Some versions are played AABB and some AA’BB’CC’. A "hell" is a dense thicket where cattle or other livestock can get lost. It is listed as a 'jig' in Ryan’s Mammoth/Cole’s 1000, referring not to the Irish 6/8 jig but to a type of old-time syncopated banjo tune known as a “straight” or “sand” jig. The minstrel origins for this syncopated tune are quite evident and the genre was popular on the early variety stage in the 1870’s and 1880’s. This setting is more even. It is on Missouri fiddler Charlie Walden's list of '100 essential Missouri fiddle tunes'. Missouri fiddler Pete McMahan incorporates the high strain of "Rocky Mountain Goat" in his version of "Hell on the Wabash". The banjo tablature is by John Letscher. It was printed in American Veteran Fifer (1902), Bruce & Emmett's The Drummer’s and Fifer’s Guide (1862), Cole's 1000 fiddle Tunes (1940), Kerr's Merry Melodies, Mattson & Walz's Old Fort Snelling: Instruction Book for the Fife (1974), Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883) and Sweet's Fifer's Delight (1964/1981), Art Rosenbaum's Art of the Mountain Banjo (1981) and Ford's Traditional Music in America (1940). It was recorded by Pete McMahan on Ozark Mountain Waltz (1987) and More Fiddle Jam Sessions (1971), Lynn `Chirps' Smith on Midwestern Harvest (1994) and Art Rosenbaum on The Art of the Mountain Banjo (1975).