Return they now, not at base Slavery’s claim,
To meet the oppressor on the battle-plain.”
“The following song was written by a private in Company A, Fifty-Fourth (colored) Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, and has been sent to us for publication by a friend of the regiment.”—Boston Transcript.
“Air.—‘Hoist up the Flag.’
“Fremont told them, when the war it first begun,
How to save the Union, and the way it should be done;
But Kentucky swore so hard, and old Abe he had his fears,
Till every hope was lost but the colored volunteers.
Chorus.—Oh! give us a flag all free without a slave,
We’ll fight to defend it as our fathers did so brave: