Oh! Dixie, the land of King Cotton,
The home of the brave and the free;
A nation by Freedom begotten,
The terror of despots to be;
Wherever thy banner is streaming,
Base tyranny quails at thy feet,
And Liberty’s sunlight is beaming,
In splendor of majesty sweet.
Chorus—Three cheers for our army so true,
Three cheers for Price, Johnston, and Lee,
Beauregard, and our Davis, forever;
The pride of the brave and the free!
When Liberty sounds her war-rattle,
Demanding her right and her due,
The first land who rallies to battle
Is Dixie, the shrine of the true;
Thick as leaves of the forest in summer,
Her brave sons will rise on each plain;
And strike, until each vandal comer
Lies dead on the soil he would stain.
Three cheers for our army, etc.
May the names of the dead, that we cherish,
Fill memory’s cup to the brim;
May the laurels they’ve won never perish,
Nor “star of their glory grow dim;”
May the States of the South never sever,
But champions of freedom e’er be;
May they flourish, Confed’rate forever,
The boast of the brave and the free.
Three cheers for our army, etc.[11]

THE GUERILLAS.

BY S. TEACKLE WALLIS.

Awake and to horse, my brothers!
For the dawn is glimmering gray,
And hark! in the crackling brushwood
There are feet that tread this way.
“Who cometh?” “A friend.” “What tidings?”
“O God! I sicken to tell;
For the earth seems earth no longer,
And its sights are sights of hell!
“From the far-off conquered cities
Comes a voice of stifled wail,
And the shrieks and moans of the houseless
Ring out, like a dirge on the gale.
“I’ve seen from the smoking village
Our mothers and daughters fly;
I’ve seen where the little children
Sank down in the furrows to die.
“On the banks of the battle-stained river
I stood as the moonlight shone,
And it glared on the face of my brother,
As the sad wave swept him on.
“Where my home was glad, are ashes,
And horrors and shame had been there,
For I found on the fallen lintel
This tress of my wife’s torn hair!
“They are turning the slaves upon us,
And with more than the fiend’s worst art,
Have uncovered the fire of the savage,
That slept in his untaught heart!
“The ties to our hearths that bound him,
They have rent with curses away,
And maddened him, with their madness,
To be almost as brutal as they.

“With halter, and torch, and Bible,
And hymns to the sound of the drum,
They preach the gospel of murder,
And pray for lust’s kingdom to come.
“To saddle! to saddle! my brothers!
Look up to the rising sun,
And ask of the God who shines there,
Whether deeds like these shall be done!
“Wherever the vandal cometh,
Press home to his heart with your steel,
And when at his bosom you can not,
Like the serpent, go strike at his heel.
“Through thicket and wood, go hunt him,
Creep up to his camp-fire side,
And let ten of his corpses blacken
Where one of our brothers hath died.
“In his fainting, foot-sore marches,
In his flight from the stricken fray,
In the snare of the lonely ambush,
The debts we owe him, pay.

“In God’s hand alone is vengeance,
But he strikes with the hands of men,
And his blight would wither our manhood,
If we smite not the smiter again.
“By the graves where our fathers slumber,
By the shrines where our mothers prayed,
By our homes, and hopes, and freedom,
Let every man swear on his blade,
“That he will not sheathe nor stay it,
Till from point to hilt it glow
With the flush of Almighty vengeance,
In the blood of the felon foe.”
They swore—and the answering sunlight
Leaped red from their lifted swords,
And the hate in their hearts made echo
To the wrath in their burning words.
There’s weeping in all New England,
And by Schuylkill’s banks a knell,
And the widows there and the orphans,
How the oath was kept, can tell.[12]

SOUTHERN MARSEILLAISE.

Ye men of Southern hearts and feeling,
Arm, Arm! your struggling country calls—
Hear ye the guns now loudly pealing,
From Sumter’s high embattled walls!
Shall a fanatic horde in power
Send forth a base and hireling band,
To desolate our happy land,
And make our Southern freemen cower.
To arms, to arms! each one,
The sword unsheathe, raise the gun,
Then on, rush on, ye brave and free,
To death or victory.
Now clouds of war begin to gather,
And black and murky is our sky—
Shall we submit—no, never, never!
Let death or freedom be our cry—
In Heaven’s justice firm relying,
We’ll nobly struggle to be free,
And bravely gain our liberty,
Or die, our Northern foes defying.
To arms, to arms! each one, etc.
The peaceful homes of Texas burning,
And Harper’s Ferry’s blood-stained soil,
Proclaim how strong their hearts are yearning
For murder, pillage, crime, and spoil.
Shall we our feelings longer smother,
And bear with patience yet our wrongs,
Their jeers, their crimes, their taunts and thongs,
And greet them still as friend and brother?
To arms, to arms! each one, etc.
Their tyranny we’ll bear no longer,
But burst asunder every tie,
Although in numbers they are stronger,
We will be free, or we will die!
Too long the South has wept, bewailing
That falsehood’s dagger Yankees wield,
But freedom is our sword and shield,
And all their arts are unavailing.
To arms, to arms, each one, etc.
Beauregard Songster.