The Kentucky Battle Song
Published in 1864, this song embodied the cause of the Confederate soldier from Kentucky. There are only two known copies of the sheet music.
In the year of sixty-one, we left our native
land,
For we could not bend our spirits to a tyrant’s stern command.
And we rallied to our Buckner while our hearts were sad and sore,
To offer our blood for freedom, as our father did before.
Chorus:
And we’ll march, march, march to the music of the drum,
We were driven forth in exile from our Old Kentucky Home.
When first the Southern flag whirled its folds upon the air,
Its stars had hardly gathered till Kentucky’s sons were there.
And they swore a solemn oath as they sternly gathered ‘round,
They would only live as freemen in the dark and bloody ground
Chorus
With Buckner as our leader, and Morgan in the van,
We will plant the flag of freedom in our fair and happy land.
We will drive the tyrant’s minions to the Ohio’s rolling flood,
And will dye her waves in crimson with coward Yankee blood.
Chorus
Then cheer ye Southern braves, ye soon shall see the day,
When Kentucky’s fairest daughters will cheer you on your way,
And then her proud old mothers will welcome one and all,
For "United we must stand, or divided we must fall".
Chorus