They call our sons “the Rebels”

because they wore soldiers’ suits of butternut and gray;

but I want to set the record straight for you

before the sun goes down today.

They say they fought as traitors

to the Northern Union cause,

and that they fought for a country

that never really was.

They say so many hateful things,

so ugly and so untrue;

those Yankees have rewritten history

to suit the Union view.

It wasn’t us but that “Old Abe”

who chose the course for us;

it was him that sent his soldiers South

and started all that fuss.

We only wanted in peace to live

apart from the Union tyranny,

and to carry on the way our founding fathers

always meant for things to be.

The northern states would not uphold the Constitution

or our sovereign rights defend;

they only wanted to tell us what and how to do

and then have their way again.

Then their soldiers came in their suits of Federal blue

across this sacred land of ours;

‘twas only then our brave soldier sons from every town

took up the Stars and Bars.

From Old Virginia down to Florida,

and from the east coast out to the far away west,

they fought them long, they fought them well,

and they gave it their level best.

They fought to save their homes from spoil

and the ravages and destruction brought on

by Mr. Lincoln’s army that came into our country,

our souls to tread hard upon.

Our soldier boys ran out of time and luck,

and out of men and ammunition too;

they could not hold them back,

all those endless hordes of  Federal blue.

So many of our brave soldier lads

lay moldering beneath the sod;

gone now but not forgotten,

they sleep ever peacefully with our loving God.

They call our sons “the Rebels”

because they  wore soldiers’ suits of butternut and gray;

it’s time we all took off our hats and shouted

to our Southern boys in unison, “Hurray, Hurray, Hurray!”