The other way about, Ron: the "Bonnie Blue Flag" predates "Southern Girl's Reply" - the Flag being a marching song from 1861 at the start of the war, the Reply based on a poem, "True to the Gray" by Pearl Rivers, dated 1865, the end of the war (according to a 1918 doctoral dissertation) and published 1874 (according to sometime 'Catter Judy Cook). And of course the poem's text sets it after some if not all of the war's horrors had taken place. The song was collected by the Warners in 1941, no earlier date is recorded than that.

Lovely rendition, Banjiman.

~ Becky in Tucson