Summary

In closing, the song I Can Whip the Scoundrel bases its origins in the minstrel song, Billy Patterson, which was inspired by a long-running joke from the 1830s. Billy Patterson may have, in turn, been inspired by a slave work song titled Pay Me My Money Down.

The song was incredibly popular among Southerners, both whites and blacks. Individual units would detail campaign experiences, personal stories, jokes, and love-life in the song in an ever-growing "epic" song.

Despite the song's wartime popularity, it was rapidly forgotten after the war until, after 1950, all the recorded versions of the song except one were based off one one single disjointed set of sources, rather than the hundreds of existing verses.