Career

He served as lieutenant colonel of the 1st Maryland Cavalry and was brevetted as a brigadier general of United States. Volunteers. Deems is remembered for his composition, Nebuchadnezzar, which was the first American oratorio. His Captain Watros Quickstep appears in the Manchester Cornet Band (4th New Hampshire Volume(s) Infantry) Books, Secretariat 1.

His most important legacy was his 1850 book, Vocal Music Simplified, which was one of the earliest public-school music texts in the United States.