GOOD OLD REBEL

GOOD OLD REBEL

According to Herbert Quick, who printed an account of “Good Old Rebel” in Colliers for

April 14, 1914, its author was Major James Randolph, a Virginian and a member of

General J.E.B. Stuart’s staff. Sung to the tune of “Joe Bowers”, it was a favorite of the

forty-niners, it traveled beyond the bounds of the Confederacy.

Edward VII, the Prince of Wales, heard it at a reception in London and called it ‘that fine

American song with the cuss words in it.'”

Oh, I’m a good old Rebel

Now that’s just what I am.

For this Yankee nation

I do not give a damn.

I’m glad I fought agin her,

I only wish we’d won.

I ain’t asked any pardon

For anything I’ve done.

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 their striped banner,

I fought it all I could.

I rode with Robert E. Lee,

For three years, thereabouts.

Got wounded in four places

And starved at Point Lookout.

I caught the rheumatism

A-camping in the snow.

But I killed a chance of Yankees

And I’d like to kill some mo’.

Three hundred thousand Yankees

Lie still 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 were three millions
Instead of what we got.

I can’t take up my musket

And fight ’em now no more,

But I ain’t going to love ’em,

Now that is certain sure;

I don’t want no pardon

For what I was and am,

I won’t be reconstructed

And I do not give a damn

Banjo Mountain

Clawhammer Banjo

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