My God! What Is All This For?

Melody - "Rosseau's Dream"

1861

Oh my God! what vengeful madness,
Brother against brother rise;
See them fall upon each other
Rage and hate flash in their eyes.

2. Oh great God! what means this carnage,
Why this fratricidal strife,
Brethren made in your own image
Seeking for each other's life?

3. Thus spoke a dying Federal soldier,
Amid the clash of arms he cried;
With hope he fixed his eyes on heaven,
Then bid adieu to earth--and died.

4. Ah how many, like this soldier,
Have been duped by Lincoln's call;
Left behind their wives and children,
On the bloody field to fall?

5. What is all this for? you ask me,
The answer's plain and will be told,
'Twas the tread on Southern honour,
And to rob the South of gold!

6. Lincoln, Seward, Sumner, Beecher,
Greely, Banks and Butler too,
With John Brown and Hinton Helper,
Wretches that have caused our woe.

From Civil War Song Sheets, Series 2, Volume 1.

The title is from the dying words of a Federal Soldier on the Battle field of Manassas, 1861.