The Unreconstructed Rebel
O, 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 am glad I fit against it-
I only wish we'd won,
And I don't want no pardon
For anything I done.
I hates the Constitution,
The great Republic, too;
I hate the Freedmen's buro
In uniforms of blue;
I hate the nasty eagle,
With all his brag and fuss,
And the lyin' thievin' Yankees,
I hates 'em wuss and wuss.
I hates the Yankee nation
And everything they do;
I hates the Declaration
Of Independence, too;
I hates the striped banner-
'Tis dripping with our blood;
I hates the glorious Union-
I fit it all I could.
I followed old Mas' Robert
For four years, near about;
Got wounded in three places,
And starved at Point Lookout;
I cotched the rheumatism
A-campin' in the snow,
But I killed a chance o' Yankees-
I'd like to kill some mo'.
Three hundred thousand Yankees
Is stiff in Southern dust;
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us.
They died of Southern fever
And Southern steel and shot-
I wish there was three million
Instead of what we got.
I can't take up my musket
And fight 'em now no more,
Now that is sartin, sure;
And I don't want no pardon,
For Reb I was and am,
I won't be reconstructed,
And I don't care a damn.
The preceding poem, folded in an old bible, was found by Mike Simpson, a member of the John Hunt Morgan Camp #270, Greenbrier, Tn.