The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #68846   Message #1162610
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
15-Apr-04 - 03:09 PM
Thread Name: Info: Civil War song? 1861-etc.
Subject: Lyr Req: Civil War song? 1861-etc.
In American Memory, going through interviews with old people, I found this song, which is familiar but I can't quite place it.
Sung by Sally Neeley, age 90, to interviewer Bernice Bowden in the 1930s. There is a mondegreen that the interviewer couldn't figure out.

In eighteen hundred and sixty-one
Football (?) sez I;
In eighteen hundred and sixty-one
That's the year the war bagun
We'll all drink stone blind,
Johnny, come fill up the bowl.

In eithteen hundred and sixty-two
Football (?) sez I;
In eithteen hundred and sixty-two
That's the year we put 'em through
We'll all drink stone blind,
Johnny. come fill up the bowl.

In eithteen hundred and sixty-three
Football (?) sez I;
In eithteen hundred and sixty-three
That's the year we didn't agree
We'll all drink stone blind,
Johnny, come fill p the bowl.

In eithteen hundred and sixty-four
Football (?) sez I;
In eighteen hundred and sixty-four
We'll all go home and fight no more
We'll all drink stone blind,
Johnny, come fill up the bowl.

In eithteen hundred and sixty-five
Football (?) sez I;
In eithteen hundred and sixty-five
We'll have the Rebels dead or alive
We'll all drink stone blind,
Johnny, come fill up the bowl.

In eighteen hundred and sixty-six
Football (?) sez I;
In eithteen hundred and sixty-six
We'll have the Rebels in a helava fix
We'll all drink stone blind,
Johnny, come fill up the bowl.

In eighteen hundred and sixty-seven
Football (?) sez i;
In eithteen hundred and sixty-seven
We'll have the rebels dead and at the devil
We'll all drink stone blind,
Johnny, come fill up the bowl.

The "Football" has me flummoxed. Also meaning of "the year we put 'em through," "the year we didn't agree." Probably references to the progress of the War.
Interviewer- football- "Sally seemed to think it was the right word." "Sally is a very wicked old woman and swears like a sailor, but she has a remarkable memory. She was 'bred and born' in Rusk County, Texas and says she came to Pine Bluff when it was 'just a little pig."
"Says she was sixteen when the Civil War began."

http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mesn/025/191186.gif