From sheet music at The Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection. (There is no publication data.)


O I'M A GOOD OLD REBEL.
A Chaunt to the Wild Western Melody, "Joe Bowers."
Respectfully dedicated to the Hon. Thad. Stevens.

By IR*

O I'm a good old rebel,
Now that's just what I am,
For this "Fair Land of Freedom"
I do not care at all; [sic]
I'm glad I fit against it—
I only wish we'd won
And I don't want no pardon
For any thing I done.

I hate the Constitution,
This Great Republic, too,
I hates the Freedman's Buro,
In uniforms of blue;
I hates the nasty eagle,
With all his braggs and fuss,
The lyin', thievin' Yankees,
I hates 'em wuss and wuss.

I hates the Yankee nation
And everything they do,
I hates the Declaration
Of Independence, too;
I hates the glorious Union—
'Tis dripping with our blood—
I hates their striped banner,
I fit it all I could.

I followed old mas' Robert
For four year, near about,
Got wounded in three places
And starved at Pint Lookout;
I cotch the roomatism
A campin' in the snow,
But I killed a chance o' Yankees,
I'd like to kill some mo'.

Three hundred thousand Yankees
Is stiff in Southern dust;
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us;
They died of Southern fever
And Southern steel and shot,
I wish they was three million
Instead of what we got.

I can't take up my musket
And fight 'em now no more,
But I ain't a going to love 'em,
Now that is sarten sure;
And I don't want no pardon
For what I was and am,
I won't be reconstructed
And I don't care a dam.


[* The "I" is engraved superimposed on the "R"—or is it the other way round? Does the monogram represent "I. R." or "R. I."? Except that the poem is attributed elsewhere to Innes Randolph, I wouldn't have a clue.]