I'm a Good Old Rebel

Unreconstructed Rebel

Melody - "Joe Bowers"

Major James Innes Randolph, 1866?

Oh, I'm a good old Rebel,
Now, that's just what I am,
For this "fair land of freedom"
I do not care a damn.
I'm glad I fit against it --
I only wish we'd won;
And I don't want no pardon
For anything I've done.

2. I hates the Constitution,
This great Republic, too;
I hates the Freedmen's Bureau,
In uniforms of blue.
I hates the nasty eagle,
With all his brag and fuss;
But the lyin', thievin' Yankees,
I hates 'em wuss and wuss.

3. 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;
And I hates the striped banner --
I fit it all I could.

4. I followed old Mars' 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 of Yankees --
And I'd like to kill some mo'.

5. Three hundred thousand Yankees
Is stiff in Southern dust;
We got three hundred thousand
Befo' they conquered us.
They died of Southern fever
And Southern steel and shot;
And I wish it was three millions
Instead of what we got.

6. I can't take up my musket
And fight 'em now no mo'.
But I ain't a-goin' to love 'em,
Now this is sartin sho';
And I don't want no pardon
For what I was and am,
And I won't be reconstructed,
And I don't care a damn.

Supposedly, the inspiration for this song was a Union soldier who conversed with a defeated Confederate soldier. He tried to lessen the blow of losing the war with small talk.

Apparently, this song can also be sung to Lily of the West and Lakes of Ponchartrain.

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