I have read that the Scots-Irish regiments sang "Their own Shenandoah Song" when they marched down from their highland homes in the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah Valley to take part in the American War of Independence. This song is thought to have been the fore runner of the song we now know as "Shenandoah".

If this is true it would date the song to at least the 1770s, thus making it America's orginal battle hymn years before "Battle Hymn of the Republic"! One version I have heard in Ulster contains the verse: