Lyr. Add: REGULAR ARMY O!
Words Ed. Harrigan; Music adapt. arr. David Braham,
Harrigan and Hart.

Three years ago, this very day,
We went to Governer's Isle;
For to stand forminst the cannon
In the military style.
Seventeen American dollars
Each month we'd surely get
For to carry a gun and baynetts
With a regimental step.
We had our choice of going to the army or to jail;
Or it's up the Hudson River,
With a "copper" take a sail,
Oh we peckered up our courage,
With bravery we did go,
Oh we cursed the day we went away
Wid the Regular Army O!

Chorus:
There was Sergeant John McCaffery
And Captain Donahue,
Oh they make us march and toe the mark
In gallant Company "Q."
Oh the drums would roll upon my soul
This is the style we'd go
Forty miles a day, on beans and hay,
In the Regular Army O!

We went to Arizony
For to fight the Injins there;
We came near being made bald-headed
But they never got our hair.
We lay among the ditches, in the yellow dirty mud,
And we never saw an onion, a turnip or a spud.
Oh we were taken prisoners, conveyed forminst the Chefe
Oh he said we'd make an Irish stew, the dirty Indian thafe.
On the telegraph wire, we walked to Mexico,
We bless the day we slipped away
From the Regular Army O!

We've been dry as army herring,
And as hungry as a Turk;
Oh the boys along the street cry out,
"Soger, would you work?"
We'd skip into the Navy,
For to plow the raging sea
But cold water sure we wouldn't endure,
'Twould never agree wid me
We'll join the politicians
Then we'll know we'll be well fed;
Oh we'll sleep no more upon the ground
But in a feather bed.
And if a war it should break out
They call on us to go,
We'll git Italian substitutes
For the Regular Army O!

We've corns upon our heels, my boys
And bunions on our toes
From lugging a gun in the red hot sun
Puts freckles on our nose.
England has her Grenadiers
France has her Zoo-zoos.
The U. S. A. never changes, they say
But continually wears the blues.
When we are out on parade
We must have our muskets bright
Or they'll slap us in the guard house
To pass away the night.
And when we want a furlough
To the Colonel we must go;
He says go to bed and wait till you're dead,
In the Regular Army O!

W. A. Pond and Co., NY, 1874.
Levy sheet music, linked above by Joe. Some of the words are hard to read; corrections appreciated.

A fifth verse was added in 1890 by Charles King, "Campaigning with Crook," pp. 158-159, Harpers, NY.

But 'twas out upon the Yellowstone we had the damndest time;
Faix, we made the trip wid Rosebud George, six months without a dime.
Some eighteen hundred miles we went through hunger, mud and rain,
Wid backs all bare, and rations rare, no chance for grass or grain;
Wid bunkies starvin by our side, no rations was the rule;
Shure 'twas ate your boots and saddles, you brutes, but feed the packer and mule.
But you know full well that in your fights no soldier lad was slow,
And it wasn't the packer that won ye a star in the regular army, O!

From Lingenfelter and Dwyer, 1968, "Songs of the American West," p. 281.