“ [349] have been singing and telling stories around the Camp fire. I send you a paragraph of gay and happy still, which we sang tonight.” the soldier was killed in the trenches the following day by the bullet of a Tennessee rifleman.
1
We're the boys that's gay and happy,
Wheresoever we may be;
And we'll do our best to please you,
If you will attentive be.
Chorus-
So let the wide world wag as it will,
We'll be gay and happy still,
Gay and happy, gay and happy,
We'll be gay and happy still.
2
We envy neither great nor wealthy,
Poverty we ne'er despise;
Let us be contented, healthy,
And the boon we dearly prize.
3
The rich have cares we little know of,
All that glitters is not gold,
Merit's seldom made a show of,
And true worth is rarely told.
The girl I left behind me
Samuel lover
The hour was sad I left the maid, a lingering farewell taking,
Her sighs and tears my steps delay'd, I thought her heart was breaking;
In hurried words her name I bless'd, I breathed the vows that bind me,
And to my heart in anguish press'd the girl I left behind me.
Then to the East we bore away, to win a name in story,
And there where dawns the sun of day, there dawns our sun of glory;
Both blazed in noon on Alma's height, where in the post assign'd me,
I shar'd the glory of that fight, Sweet Girl I Left Behind Me.
One I left there
A Southern song of sentiment that equaled Lorena in popularity during the war.1
Soft blows the breath of morning
In my own valley fair,
For it's there the opening roses
With fragrance scent the air,
With fragrance scent the air.
And with perfume fill the air,
But the breath of one I left there
Is sweeter far to me.
1
Soft fall the dews of evening
Around our valley bowers;
And they glisten on the grass plots
And tremble on the flowers,
And tremble on the flowers
Like jewels rich to see,
But the tears of one I left there
Are richer gems to me.
‘The girl I left’ It is a strange chance of photography that preserved the wistful face of this wartime Yankee Girl at Fort Monroe, gazing from her window, to appear here. For The Girl I left behind me was originally inscribed ‘To a Yankee Girl at Fort Monroe’! The demure lassie here, with the simple parting of the hair, the little bows and knots of ribbon on her dress, the plaid shawl drawn about her arm, the brocaded curtain above her head—all bring back the days that are gone. The jaunty words of the Girl I left behind me bore an undercurrent of sadness, a fear that the waiting sweetheart might by the fortunes of war be condemned to spend a lifetime in unavailing sorrow. The tenderness and pathos of this song have made it live unto a later age. It strikes a note of universal tenderness.
The faded coat of blue
J. H. McNaughton
The faded coat of blue was sung extensively throughout the North during the war, in memory of the lads who were gathered with the bivouac of the dead.My brave lad he sleeps in his faded coat of blue;
In a lonely grave unknown lies the heart that beat so true;
He sank faint and hungry among the famished brave,
And they laid him sad and lonely within his nameless grave.
