My mother says my grandfather sang this song. He grew up in east Texas and moved to western Oklahoma about 1910. His father was a Civil War vet from Arkansas, who fought on both sides during the Civil War. He enlisted at 16, was captured by the Union, and agreed to fight for the Union if they would release him. But grandpa's grandfather was also a soldier, who enlisted in the regular army in New York in 1828 and was sent to Fort Gibson in the Indian Territory. So maybe that's why the song was about an "old tarry" (sailor).

After studying all the versions, I think the original must have gone something like this:
O, there was an old soldier and he had a wooden leg,
He had no tobacco, but tobacco he could beg;
And there was an old tarry as sly as a fox,
Who always had tobacco in his old tobacco box.

Said the old soldier, Won't you give me a chew?
Said the old tarry, I'll be danged if I do;
Just dive down to the bottom and hold onto the rocks,
And you'll always have tobacco in your old tobacco box.

Well, then the old soldier was a feelin' very bad,
He says, I'll get even, I will, egad!
Then he goes to a corner, takes his rifle from its peg,
and stabs the old sailor with a splinter from his leg.

If it didn't, it should have.