Folk and Traditional Song Lyrics:
Unreconstructed Rebel

Unreconstructed Rebel

Unreconstructed Rebel
(Major Innes Randolph)

Oh, I'm a good old Rebel,
Now that's just what I am;
For this "fair land of Freedom"
I do not care a damn.
I'm glad I fit against it-
I only wish we'd won.
And I don't want no pardon
For anything I've done.

I hates the Constitution,
This great Republic too;
I hates the Freedmen's Buro,
In uniforms of blue.
I hates the nasty eagle,
With all his brag and fuss;
But the lyin', thievin' Yankees
I hates' em wuss and wuss.

We got three hundred thousand
Befo' they conquered us.
They died of Southern fever
And Southern steel and shot;
And I wish it was three million
Instead of what we got.
                   .
I can't take up my musket
And fight' em now no mo',
But I ain't a-goin'to love' em,
Now that is sartin sho';
And I don't want no pardon
For what I was and am;
And I won't be reconstructed,
And I do not give a damn.

originally printed in Collier's Weekly in 1914
RG