Soon after, sheet music was published titled "Oh! Let My People Go: The Song of the Contrabands", arranged by Horace Waters. Lockwood stated in the sheet music that the song was from Virginia, dating from about 1853.

However, the song was not included in Slave Songs of the United States, despite its being a very prominent spiritual among enslaved people. Furthermore, the original version of the song sung by enslaved people almost definitely sounded very different from what Lockwood transcribed by