Proof of the song's popularity lies in the fact that Robert Gordon received a number of very similar texts from old soldiers (mostly officers, it seems) when he was writing his song column for "Adventure" magazine the 1920s.

There is (or was twenty-five years ago!) a small broadside of the Harrigan lyrics, without the tune, in the Music Division of the New York Public Library.

Interestingly enough, the melody is well-known in Irish music circles under various titles including "From Galway to Dublin." Francis O'Neill published it a century ago as "Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine." The Clancy Bros. & Tommy Makem used to sing "Mick McGuire" to the same tune.

Dolph's text differs from the original. With a stanza or two silently omitted, it also appears in Alan Lomax's "Folk Songs of North America." B.A. Botkin is more faithful to his source in the earlier "A Treasury of Western Folklore."

The original text and tune are reprinted in Richard Lingenfelter & Richard Dwyer's "Songs of the American West."

The reference escapes me now, but one period book about the frontier army quotes a topical verse of folk composition sung by General Crook's column in 1876. Will post if I can dig it out of the attic.