According to Thomas Gibbon, "A Summer Dream of '71: A Story of Corea," in "The Far East" (April, 1878) p. 83, the lyrics were written by Petty Officer George R. Willis, USN (1840-1884), who penned them shortly after reading of the fight between the Cumberland and the Virginia. Willis soon had copies printed as a broadside in Pensacola (Gibbon, Tales That Were Told, N.Y.: Chicago [sic] Press, 1891). Gibbon thought the song "the most popular sea-song of the American service, — and it is not unknown in the British Navy...It is sung nightly, in all parts of the world, wherever Uncle Sam’s sailors congregate."

Willis was later awarded the Medal of Honor "for gallant and meritorious conduct, while serving on the [USS] Tigress, on the night of September 22, 1873, off the coast of Greenland."

(At the time, the MOH sas the sole U.S. armed forces decoration and was awarded for both combat and non-combat actions.)