Favorite Lines/Lyrics?

[CyleKostello]

Hi all!

Was recently listening to some ACW era music and was struck by some of the particularly poignant lines.

My personal favorite is from the "Marching Song of the First Arkansas". A popular song amongst USCT troops. The line in question is:

"When the master hears us yellin' they will it's Gabriel's horn"

Just an incredible line that gives me chills whenever I hear it. An incredible distillation of what the USCT were fighting for, as well as the pure biblical justice of their cause.

Was wondering if you folks had any lines or verses that resonated with you as much as the above did with me.

Best,
Kyle

 

[DBF]

Words that reflect how the soldiers were just a breath away from dying and still marched forward from "Just before the Battle, Mother".

"Comrades brave are 'round me lying,
Filled with thoughts of home and God
For well they know that on the morrow,
Some will sleep beneath the sod."

 

[7thWisconsin]

¨tenderly bury the fair unknown dead,
pausing to drop on his grave a tear.
Place on the wooden slab over his head:
´Somebody´s Darling is slumbering here.´¨

Closing lines of ¨Somebody´s Darling¨

 

[Library Lady]

He's Coming to Us Dead. This whole song really gets to me, first time and every time. I first heard it when the 97th Regimental String Band, a re-enactor musical group out of Florida, played a concert for my Civil War Round Table around the time of the First Iraq War. They routinely took requests from the audience at the end of a concert. By the time they got this far north, they had had so many requests for it that they added it to their standard set.

Norman Blake – He's Coming to Us Dead

[Verse 1] / One morning when the office had opened / A man quite old in years / Stood beside the express office / Showing signs of grief and tears / [Verse 2] / When the clerk

genius.com

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp - When first heard in Andersonville Prison, sung by the newest batch of "fresh fish" captured after this song was published, the other prisoners kept asking for it to be sung until everyone knew the lyrics (according to one man's written recollection - I can't remember whose diary noted that)

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,
Cheer up, comrades, they will come.
And beneath the starry flag we shall breathe the air again,
Of the free land in our own beloved home.

American Civil War Union Song Lyrics Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!

Music of the American Civil War union song lyrics to Tramp or the Prisoners Hope

americancivilwar.com

 

[Lubliner]

"Mine eyes have seen the Glory...." and "Swing Low Sweet Chariot", written in 1840 by a Choctaw freedman, Wallis Willis. These two put me there all the way through the song.
Lubliner.

 

[connecticut yankee]

"We shall meet, but we shall miss him, there will be one vacant chair; We shall linger to caress him when we breathe our evening prayer. When a year ago we gathered, joy was in his mild blue eye, But a golden cord is severed, and our hopes in ruin lie." The Vacant Chair words & music by George F. Root​

 

[Claude Bauer]

Hi all!

Was recently listening to some ACW era music and was struck by some of the particularly poignant lines.

My personal favorite is from the "Marching Song of the First Arkansas". A popular song amongst USCT troops. The line in question is:

"When the master hears us yellin' they will it's Gabriel's horn"

Just an incredible line that gives me chills whenever I hear it. An incredible distillation of what the USCT were fighting for, as well as the pure biblical justice of their cause.

Was wondering if you folks had any lines or verses that resonated with you as much as the above did with me.

Best,
Kyle

"Many days you have lingered around my cabin door
Oh, hard times come again no more..."

 

[JOHN42768]

I don't think one can get more poignant then the words of "Taps"

 

[Jantzen64]

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 mummies of hard crackers are handed to each man.
O, hard tack, come again no more!

AKA as "Hard Crackers" (parody of "Hard Times Come Again No More"

Hard Tack Come Again No More - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Lampasas Bill]

We are coming Father Abraham, 300,000 more,
From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore.
We leave our plows and workshops, our wives and children dear,
With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear.
We dare not look behind us but steadfastly before.
We are coming Father Abraham, 300,000 more!

We are coming Father Abraham by James S. Gibbons

 

[Rank and File]

Old times dar am not forgotten

 

[Lubliner]

Old times dar am not forgotten

look away look away look away dixie land

 

[Sampson’s Ghost]

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord
He is trapping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He have loosed the fateful lightening of his terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on"-Julia Ward Howe

 

[Sampson’s Ghost]

"Just before the battle mother
I am thinking most of you
While upon this filed we're watching
With the enemy in view
Comrades brave are lying 'round me
Filled with thoughts of hole and god
For they know that on the morrow
Some may sleep beneath the sod- "Just Before the Battle, Mother (George Frederick Root)

 

[Lampasas Bill]

Another favorite: The Faded Coat of Blue. It was obviously a favorite in the North, but it had a revival in the South after the Spanish American War, when both Northern and Southern soldiers wore blue.

My brave lad sleeps in his faded coat of blue.
In a lonely grave unknown lies the heart that beat so true.
He sank faint and hungry among the famished brave,
And they laid him sad and lonely within his nameless grave.

CHORUS:
No more the bugle calls the weary one.
Rest, noble spirit, in thy grave unknown.
I'll find you and know you among the good and true
When a robe of white is given for the faded coat of blue.

by J. H. McNaughton

 

[Fairfield]

A beautiful line from a letter from Corp. Alphonzo Pierce (1st Maine Cavalry) from Libby Prison home to his parents in Windsor, Maine:
"and if we never meet again on this Earth, may it be in God's will that we meet in Heaven".

His words turned out to be a prophecy because he died in Virginia and never came home as a living man.