by Thomas Bailey Aldrich 1,2
adapted to music by John Molter 3
.
The shades of night were falling fast,As through a Southern village passed
A youth, who bore, not over nice,
A banner with the gay device,
Skedaddle!
.
His hair was red, his toes beneath
Peeped, like an acorn from its sheath,
While with a frightened, voice he sang
A burden strange to Yankee tongue,
Skedaddle!
.
He saw no household fire where he
Might warm his tod or hominy;
Beyond the Cordilleras shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Skedaddle!
.
“Oh! stay,” a cullered pusson said,
“An’ on dis bossom res’ your hed!”
The octoroon she winked her eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Skedaddle!
.
“Beware McClellan, Buell, and Banks,
Beware of Halleck’s deadly ranks!”.
This was the planter’s last Good Night;
The chap replied, far out of sight,
Skedaddle!
.
At break of day, as several boys
from Maine, New York and Illinois
Were moving Southward, in the air
They heard these accents of despair,
Skedaddle!
.
A chap was found and at his side
A bottle, showing how he died,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Skedaddle!
.
There in the twilight, thick and gray,
Considerably played out he lay;
And through the vapor, gray and thick,
A voice fell like a rocket-stick,
Skedaddle!
.
- Moore, F. (1882). Skedaddle. In Anecdotes, poetry, and incidents of the War: North And south: 1860-1865. New York: Arundel.
- Aldrich, T. (1864). Skedaddle. In F. Moore (Editor), Songs of the Soldiers (pp. 94-95). New York, New York: G. P. Putnam.
- Molter, J. (1862). Skedaddle. H. M. Higgins, Chicago. [Notated Music] Retrieved 7/21/21 from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200000783/.