613 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
613 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
Newsgroups: freenet.shrine.songs
|
||
From: aa300 (Jerry Murphy)
|
||
Subject: Songs from the Civil War
|
||
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 15:56:57 EST
|
||
|
||
|
||
:MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM:
|
||
:CIVIL WAR SONGBOOK:
|
||
:MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM:
|
||
|
||
|
||
THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM - George F. Root, 1862
|
||
|
||
Yes, we'll rally round the flag, boys
|
||
rally once again,
|
||
Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom
|
||
And we'll rally from the hillside
|
||
We'll gather from the plains,
|
||
Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
Forever, hurrah boys hurrah!
|
||
Down with the traitor and up with the star,
|
||
And we'll rally round the flag, boys
|
||
We'll rally once again
|
||
Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom
|
||
|
||
We are springing to the call
|
||
For three hundred thousand more,
|
||
Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom.
|
||
And we'll fill the vacant ranks
|
||
From our brothers gone before,
|
||
Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
We will welcom to our numbers
|
||
The loyal, true and brave,
|
||
Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom
|
||
And altho' he may be poor
|
||
He will never be a slave,
|
||
Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
So we're springing to the call
|
||
From the East and from the West,
|
||
Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom.
|
||
And we'll hurl the rebel crew
|
||
From the land we love the best,
|
||
Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
|
||
MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA - Henry Clay Work, 1865
|
||
|
||
Bring the good ol' Bugle boys
|
||
We'll sing another song--
|
||
Sing it with the spirit
|
||
That will start the world along--
|
||
Sing it like we used to sing it
|
||
Fifty thousand strong,
|
||
While we were marching through Georgia
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the jubilee!
|
||
Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that makes you free!
|
||
So we sang the chorus from
|
||
Atlanta to the Sea,
|
||
While we were marching through Georgia
|
||
|
||
How the darkeys shouted when they
|
||
heard the joyful sound,
|
||
How the turkeys gobbled which our
|
||
Commissary found,
|
||
How the sweet potatoes even
|
||
Started from the ground,
|
||
While we were marching through Georgia
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
Yes and there were Union men
|
||
Who wept with joyful tears,
|
||
When they saw the honored flag
|
||
They had not seen for years;
|
||
Hardly could they be restrained
|
||
From breaking forth in cheers,
|
||
While we were marching through Georgia
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
"Sherman's dashing Yankee boys
|
||
Will never make the coast!"
|
||
So the saucy rebels said
|
||
and 'twas a handsome boast
|
||
Had they not forgot, alas!
|
||
To reckon with the Host
|
||
While we were marching through Georgia
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
So we made a thoroughfare for
|
||
Freedom and her train,
|
||
Sixty miles of latitude--
|
||
Three hundred to the main;
|
||
Treason fled before us,
|
||
For resistance was in vain
|
||
While we were marching through Georgia
|
||
|
||
ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC TONIGHT - Lyics: Ethel Beers
|
||
Music: John Hewitt
|
||
1863
|
||
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight,"
|
||
Except here and there a stray picket;
|
||
Is shot as he walks on his beat to and fro,
|
||
By a rifleman hid in the thicket;
|
||
Tis nothing! a private or two now and then,
|
||
Will not count in the new of the battle,
|
||
Not an officer lost! only one of the men
|
||
Moaning out all alone the death rattle.
|
||
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight!"
|
||
|
||
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight,"
|
||
Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming,
|
||
And the tents in the rays of the clear Autumn moon,
|
||
And the light of the campfires are gleaming;
|
||
There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread,
|
||
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
|
||
And thinks of the two on the low trundle bed,
|
||
Far away in the cot on the mountain.
|
||
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight,"
|
||
|
||
His musket falls slack-his face dark and grim,
|
||
Grows gentle with memories tender,
|
||
As he mutters a pray'r for the children asleep
|
||
And their mother "May heaven defend her!"
|
||
The moon seems to shine as brightly as then
|
||
That night, when the love yet unspoken,
|
||
Leap'd up to his lips, and when low murmur'd vows,
|
||
Were pledg'd to be ever unbroken
|
||
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight,"
|
||
|
||
Then drawing his sleeve roughly o'er his eyes,
|
||
He dashes off the tears that are welling,
|
||
And gathers his gun close up to his breast,
|
||
As if to keep down the heart's swelling;
|
||
He passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree,
|
||
And his footstep is lagging and weary,
|
||
Yet onward he goes thro' the broad belt of light,
|
||
Toward the shades of the forest so dreary
|
||
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight,"
|
||
|
||
Hark! was it the nightwind that rustles the leaves!
|
||
Was it the moonlight so wond'rously flashing?
|
||
It look'd like a rifle! "Ha! Mary goodbye!"
|
||
And his lifeblood is ebbing and plashing,
|
||
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight",
|
||
No sound save the rush of the river,
|
||
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead,
|
||
The picket's off duty forever
|
||
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight,"
|
||
|
||
|
||
THE VACANT CHAIR - George F. Root, 1862
|
||
|
||
We shall meet, but we shall miss him,
|
||
there will be one vacant chair;
|
||
We shall linger to caress him,
|
||
While we breath our eveneing prayer
|
||
When a year ago we gathered,
|
||
Joy was in his mild blue eye;
|
||
But a golden chord is severed,
|
||
And our hopes in ruin lie.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
We shall meet, but we shall miss him,
|
||
There will be one vacant chair;
|
||
We shall linger to caress him,
|
||
When we breath our evening prayer.
|
||
|
||
At our fireside, sad and lonely,
|
||
Often will the bosom swell;
|
||
At remembrence of the story,
|
||
How our noble Willie fell;
|
||
How he strove to bear our banner
|
||
Thro' the thickest of the fight,
|
||
And uphold our country's honor,
|
||
In the strength of manhood's might.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
True they tell us wreaths of glory,
|
||
Evermore will deck his brow,
|
||
But this smooths the anguish only
|
||
Sweeping o'er our heartstrings now.
|
||
|
||
Sleep today, o early fallen,
|
||
In thy green and narrow bed,
|
||
Dirges from the pine and cypress,
|
||
Mingle with the tears we shed.
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
|
||
TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP - George F. Root, 1864
|
||
|
||
In a prison cell I sit,
|
||
Thinking, mother dear, of you
|
||
And our bright and happy home so far away,
|
||
And the tears they fill my eyes,
|
||
spite of all that I can do,
|
||
Tho' I try to cheer my comrades and be gay
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are marching,
|
||
Cheer up comrades, they will come,
|
||
And beneath the starry flag,
|
||
We shall breath the air again,
|
||
Of freedom in our own beloved home.
|
||
|
||
In the battle front we stood,
|
||
When the fiercest charge they made,
|
||
And they swept us off a hundred men or more,
|
||
But before we reached their lines,
|
||
They were beaten back dismayed,
|
||
And we heard the cry of victory o'er and o'er
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
So within a prison cell,
|
||
We are waiting for the day,
|
||
That shall come to open wide the iron door,
|
||
And the hollow eyes grow bright,
|
||
And the poor heary almost gay,
|
||
And we think of seeing friends and home once more.
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
|
||
HARD TACK - anonymous
|
||
|
||
Let us close our game of poker
|
||
Take our tin cups in our hand,
|
||
As we all stand by the cook's tent door;
|
||
As dried mummys of hard crackers,
|
||
Are handed to each man
|
||
Oh hard tack come again no more.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
It's the song the sigh of the hungry,
|
||
Oh hard tack, hard tack, come again no more.
|
||
Many days have you lingered upon our stomachs sore,
|
||
Oh hard tack come again no more.
|
||
|
||
It's a hungry, thirsty soldier
|
||
who wears his life away,
|
||
In torn clothes his better days are gone.
|
||
And he's sighing now for whiskey
|
||
In a voice as dry as hay
|
||
Oh hard tack come again no more.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
It's the wail that is heard in the camps
|
||
Both night and day
|
||
Tis the murmur that's mingled with each snore;
|
||
It's the sighing of the soul
|
||
for spring chickens far away,
|
||
Oh hard tack come again no more.
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
But to all these cries and murmurs
|
||
There comes a sudden hush,
|
||
As frail forms are fainting by the ooor
|
||
For they feed us now on horse feed,
|
||
That the cooks call mush,
|
||
Oh hard tack come again once more.
|
||
|
||
Last chorus
|
||
It's the dying wail fo the starving,
|
||
Oh hard tack, hard tack, come again once more,
|
||
You were old and very wormy, but we passed
|
||
your failings o'er,
|
||
Oh hard tack come again once more.
|
||
|
||
|
||
THE ARMY BEAN - Anonymous
|
||
|
||
There's a spot that the soldiers all love,
|
||
The cook tents the place that we mean,
|
||
And the dish we love best to find there,
|
||
Is the old fashioned white army bean.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
'Tis the bean, that we mean,
|
||
And we eat as we nevr' ate before,
|
||
The army bean, nice and clean,
|
||
We will stick to our beans evermore.
|
||
|
||
Now the bean in its primitive state,
|
||
Is a plant we have all often met,
|
||
But when cooked in the old army style,
|
||
It has a charge we can never forget
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
Now the German is fond of sauerkraut,
|
||
And the potato is loved bye the Mick
|
||
But the soldiers have long since found out,
|
||
That through life to our beans we must stick.
|
||
|
||
Last chorus:
|
||
Tis the bean, that we mean,
|
||
And we eat as we nevr' ate before,
|
||
The army bean, nice and clean,
|
||
We will stick to our beans evermore.
|
||
The army bean, nice and clean,
|
||
We will stick to our beans evermore.
|
||
|
||
|
||
OLD BLACK JOE - By S.C. Foster, 1860
|
||
|
||
Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
|
||
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
|
||
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
|
||
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe".
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low,
|
||
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe".
|
||
|
||
Why do I weep, when my heart should feel no pain,
|
||
Why do I sigh that my friends come not again.
|
||
Grieving for forms now departed long ago.
|
||
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe"
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
Where are the hearts once so happy and so free?
|
||
The children so dear that I held upon my knee
|
||
Gone to the shore where my soul has longed to go,
|
||
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe"
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
|
||
OLD FOLKS AT HOME - E.P. Christy, 1851
|
||
|
||
Way down upon the Swannee ribber, far, far away,
|
||
Dere's wha my heart is turning ebber,
|
||
Dere's wha de old folks stay,
|
||
|
||
All around de little farm I wandered, when I was young
|
||
Den many happy days I squandered, many de songs I sung,
|
||
When I was playing wid my brudder, happy was I,
|
||
Oh! take me to my kind old mudder, dere let me live and die
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
All de world am sad and dreary, ebry where I roam,
|
||
Oh! darkeys how my heart grows weary,
|
||
Far from de old folks at home.
|
||
|
||
One little hut among de bushes, one dat I love,
|
||
Still sadly to my mem'ry rushes, no matter where I rove,
|
||
When will I see de bees a hummin' all round de comb,
|
||
When will I hear de banjo tumming, down in my good old home.
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
|
||
JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE MOTHER - Goerge F. Root, 1863
|
||
|
||
Just before the battle mother,
|
||
I am thinking most of you;
|
||
While upon the field we're watching,
|
||
With the enemy in view.
|
||
Comrades brave around me lying,
|
||
Filled with thoughts of home and God;
|
||
For well they know upon the morrow,
|
||
Some will sleep beneath the sod
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
Farewell mother you may never
|
||
Press me to your heart again;
|
||
But, oh, you'll not forget me mother,
|
||
If I'm numbered with the slain
|
||
|
||
Oh, I long to see you mother,
|
||
and the loving ones at home;
|
||
But I'll never leave our banner,
|
||
'till in honor I can come.
|
||
Tell the enemy around you
|
||
That their cruel words, we know,
|
||
|
||
In every battle kill our soldiers
|
||
by the help they give the foe.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
Hark! I hear the bugles sounding,
|
||
'Tis the signal for the fight,
|
||
Now may God protect us mother,
|
||
as he ever does the right.
|
||
Hear the "Battle Cry of Freedom",
|
||
How it swells upon the air,
|
||
Oh yes, we'll rally round the standard
|
||
Or we'll perish nobly there.
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
|
||
TENTING ON THE OLD CAMPGROUND - Walter Kittridge, 1864
|
||
|
||
We're tenting tonight on the old campground,
|
||
Give us a song to cheer
|
||
Our weary hearts, a song of home,
|
||
And friends we love so dear.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
Many are the hearts that are weary tonight,
|
||
Wishing for the war to cease,
|
||
Many are the hearts, looking for the right,
|
||
To see the dawn of peace.
|
||
Tenting tonight, tenting tonight,
|
||
Tenting on the old campground.
|
||
|
||
We've been tenting tonight on the old campground,
|
||
Thinking of days gone by;
|
||
Of the loved ones at home that gave us the hand,
|
||
And the tear that said "goodbye!"
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
We've been fighting today on the old campground,
|
||
Many are lying near,
|
||
Some are dead and some are dying,
|
||
Many are in tears.
|
||
|
||
Last Chorus:
|
||
Many are the hearts that are weary tonight,
|
||
Wishing for the war to cease,
|
||
Many are the hearts, looking for the right,
|
||
To see the dawn of peace.
|
||
Dying tonight, dying tonight,
|
||
Dying on the old campground.
|
||
|
||
|
||
KINGDOM COMING: - Henry Clay Work, 1862
|
||
|
||
Say darkeys hab you seen de massa,
|
||
Wid de muffstash on his face,
|
||
Gos long de road sometime dis mornin'
|
||
Like he gwine to leab de place?
|
||
He seen a smoke way up de ribber,
|
||
Where de Linkum gumboats lay;
|
||
He took his hat an' lef' berry sudden
|
||
An' I spec he's run away.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
De massa run? Ha! Ha! De darkeys stay. Ho! Ho!
|
||
It mus' be now de kingdom comin' and de year ob Jubilo!
|
||
|
||
He six foot one way, two foot tudder
|
||
An' he way tree hundred pound,
|
||
his coat so big, he couldn't pay de tailor,
|
||
An' it won't go half way round.
|
||
He drill so much they call him cap'an
|
||
An' he get so drefful tann'd,
|
||
I spec he try and fool dem Yankees
|
||
For to tink he's contraband!
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
De oberseer he make us trouble
|
||
and he dribe us round a spell;
|
||
We lock him up in de somkehouse cellar
|
||
Wid de key trown down de well.
|
||
De whip is lost de han'cuff broken,
|
||
But de massa'll hab his pay.
|
||
He's ole enough, big enough to outght to known better
|
||
dan to went an' run away.
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
|
||
GOOBER PEAS - A. Pender
|
||
|
||
Sitting by the roadside on a summer day.
|
||
Chatting with my messmates passing time away,
|
||
Lying in the shadows underneath the threes,
|
||
Goodness how delicious, eating Goober Peas!
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
Peas! Peas! Peas! Peas! Eating goober peas,
|
||
Goodness how delicious, eating goober peas!
|
||
|
||
When the horseman passes, the soldiers have a rule,
|
||
To cry out at their loudest "Mister here's your mule"
|
||
But another pleasure enchantinger than these,
|
||
Is wearing out your grinders, eating goober peas.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
Just before the battle the General hears a row,
|
||
|
||
He ways "The yanks are coming, I hear their rifles now,"
|
||
He turns around in wonder and what do you think he sees,
|
||
The Georgia militia eating Goober peas!
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
I think my song has lasted almost long enough,
|
||
The subject's interesting, but the rhymes are mighty rough,
|
||
I wish this war was over, when free from rags and fleas,
|
||
We'd kiss our wives and sweethearts and gobble goober peas!
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
|
||
BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC - Julia Ward Howe, 1862
|
||
|
||
Mine eyes have seen the glory
|
||
of the coming of the lord,
|
||
He is trampling out the vintage
|
||
Where the grapes of wrath are stored
|
||
He hath loosed his fateful lightning
|
||
of his terrible swift sword,
|
||
His truth is marching on.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
|
||
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
|
||
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
|
||
His truth is marching on
|
||
|
||
I have seen him in the watchfires of a
|
||
hundred circling camps,
|
||
They have builded him an alter in the evening
|
||
dews and damps
|
||
I can read his righteous sentence
|
||
by the dim and flaring lamps;
|
||
His day is marching on.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
I have read a firey gospel
|
||
Writ in burnished rows of steel
|
||
"As ye deal with my contemners,
|
||
So with you my grace will deal;
|
||
Let the hero born of woman
|
||
Crush the serpent with his heel;
|
||
Since God is marching on.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
In the beauty of the lilies
|
||
Christ was born across the sea
|
||
With a glory in his bosom
|
||
That transfigures you and me;
|
||
As he died to make men holy
|
||
ley us die to make men free,
|
||
While God is marching on.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
|
||
WEEPING, SAD AND LONELY - Lyrics: Charles C. Sawyer
|
||
Music: Henry Tucker
|
||
1862
|
||
|
||
Dearest love do you remember,
|
||
|
||
When we lst did meet,
|
||
How you told me that you loved me,
|
||
Kneeling at my feet?
|
||
Oh! How proud you stood before me,
|
||
In your suit of blue,
|
||
When you vow'd to me and country,
|
||
Ever to be true
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
Weeping, sad and lonely,
|
||
Hopes and fears, how vain,
|
||
when this cruel war is over,
|
||
Praying! That we meet again.
|
||
|
||
When the summer breeze is sighing,
|
||
Mournfully along
|
||
Or when autumn leaves are falling,
|
||
Sadly breathes the song.
|
||
Oft in dreams I see thee lying,
|
||
Oh the battle plain,
|
||
Lonely, wounded, even dying,
|
||
Calling but in vain.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|
||
If amid the din of battle,
|
||
Nobly you should fall,
|
||
Far away from those who love you,
|
||
None to hear your call.
|
||
Who would whisper words of comfort,
|
||
Who would soothe your plain?
|
||
Ah! The many cruel fancies,
|
||
Ever in my brain.
|
||
|
||
Chorus:
|
||
|