"The tired Union soldier hobbbled on his only limb". My great grandfather Thomas Taylor served in the Union army from Gettysburg through the Wilderness and outside Richmond. He lost a leg at Peebles Farm Virginia in September 1864 and spent several months at Judiciary Square Hospital in Washington DC. He was probably discharged before the end of the war but I like to think of him as that soldier. "And wondered what the future held for him" - he got a job as tollkeeper of a bridge across the Allegheny River at Emlenton PA, apparently as some primitive Veterans' benefit. He was able to save enough to buy and operate a jewelry store until 1918.
I knew him as a kindly old man when it was my job to bring ice to him from the nearby creamery. He would reward me with horehound candies which I hated but never told him so. One of my fondest possessions is a four generation picture taken shortly before he died in 1934. Sorry to bring personal things into the thread. It's a great song apocryphal or true.