Kentucky Battle Song

Respectfully inscribed to the Kentucky brigade, 1863.
words by Coke
music by Charlie L. Ward


The sheet music:


Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:


Lyrics

  1. 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 fathers did before

Chorus
And we’ll march, march, march to the music of the drum
We were drawn forth in exile from our old Kentucky home

  1. When first the Southern flag unfurled 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 freeman in the dark and bloody ground
  2. 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 tyrants minions to the Ohio’s rolling flood
    And will dye her waves in crimson with coward Yankee blood
  3. 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, but divided we must fall”

Sung here by Fred Feild: