Intro

Stand to your glasses steady,

And drink to the land we prize.

Here’s to the dead already.

Bravo! for the next who dies.

 

(spoken:) During the Civil War, the ranks of the Confederacy were filled with men from all over the South. This song depicts the individual spirit of four different compatriots of the Lost Cause.

 

1.

I come up here from Texas to don the rebel gray.

There’s powder in my pistols and I’m ready for the fray.

I used to fight Comanches, but I never had such fun

As the time I scalped that yankee at the battle of Bull Run.

 

Chorus

With sabers in our hands and pistols by our side,

Hell for leather through the land, we’ll saddle up and ride,

And we’ll rally from the hills and gather from the plains,

From Texas to Virginia, we’ll rally once again.

 

2.

I left my little farmhouse way back in Tennessee.

I left my wife and children to wait at home for me.

I ain’t got much to fight with, just my courage and my gun,

But I’ve killed a dozen yankees, and I’ve made ten thousand run.

 

(Chorus)

 

3.

My pappy and my grandpa were soldiers in their day,

But pappy’s past the fighting age and grandpa’s passed away.

I’ll take that family shotgun, there’s no one left but me,

I’m following Virginia and the sword of Bobby Lee.

 

(Chorus)

 

4.

I just come up from Louisiana, where the alligators crawl.

I got both my arms blowed off by a New York cannonball.

I can’t pick up no saber now and I can’t shoot no gun,

But when I give a rebel yell, you oughta see those scoundrels run.

 

(Chorus)