A full and routine text appeared in the "Benton Weekly Record" of Fort Benton, Montana Territory, on Sept. 25, 1875.

The correspondent notes: "Thick and fast ran the tears down the manly cheeks of [the singer] as he sang the last words. Everyone present had out his handkerchief."

The "National Tribune" (Washington, D.C.) (Apr. 7, 1904) prints another text, perhaps sung during the Civil War. It adds this unusual final stanza:

I am a Texas ranger, as I have said before;
My mother and my sister are on this earth no more;
May they be ever happy; as you can plainly see,
I have no wife nor sweetheart to weep and mourn for me.

And the "St. Louis Globe-Democrat" (Oct. 30, 1913), writes startlingly:

"It is more likely that the American troops in Mexico were infected with a passion for the Texan song beginning:

"Come all you Texas rangers, wherever you may be,
A story I will tell you that happened unto me

and running on into a description of the glorious field of San Jacinto
where 'I seen them dagos comin', I heern them give their yell. Our captain says, says he 'to-night they'll shorely be in hell.'

"Such profane language assumes too much."