SOLO
He was Jim, the blue-eyed Boston boy, his voice was low with pain
"I'll do your bidding, comrades mine, if I ride back again.
But if you ride back, and I am dead, you'll do as much for me.
My Mother, you know, must hear the news, so write to her tenderly."
"She is sitting at home like a waiting saint, her fond face pale with woe.
Her heart will be broken when I am gone, I'll see her soon, I know."
Just then the order came to charge, for an instant, hands touched hands
They answered, "I am on the road to that brave and devoted band."
SOLO
Straight was the course to the top of the hill, and the rebels with shot and shell
Plowed furrows of death in the toiling ranks, and guarded them as they fell
There soon was a horrible dying yell, from heights they could not gain
And those whom doom and death had spared rode slowly back again
But among the dead who were left on the field was the boy with the curly hair
The tall, dark man who fought by his side, lay dead beside him there
There were none to write to the blue-eyed girl, the word her lover had said
While Mother at home is a-waiting her boy, she'll only know he's dead
SOLO
NOTE:
James Monroe Gevedon was a fiddle player from Kentucky. Born 1871 at Grassy Creek, western Morgan County, died there in 1957. Recorded by Alan Lomax.