Reconstructed Rebel Soldier

"Sam, did I ever tell you the story about my Uncle Jim and the song that I got a big reward for singing, that he taught me?"

"No, you didn't"

"Alright, let’s hear it"

"Well, I got the big reward. It was a, uh, good fashion. See, my father was uh, rather religious. In fact, he was very religious. Well, Uncle Jim was a.. he was an Ohio boy that ran away from home, uh, before the Civil War. The outbreak of the Civil War found him in New Orleans, and he enlisted in the Confederate Army. In 1863, he was captured, and, sentenced to, uh prison on Johnson island in Lake Erie. And at that time, the, uh Federal Government went through the prisoners war camps in the north, and they offered all these old rebels a chance to, uh, get out of the prison if they would take the Oath of Allegiance and join the United States Regular Army and go out on the Western Plains to fight the Indians. Under the solemn promise that they wouldn't be used to fight against the South. So Uncle Jim was one of those, and, uh, picked all them galvanized Yankees. So, Uncle Jim came to Knoxville, Tennessee. That was the hometown, well, our hometown, for a blue and a gray reunion. In, uh, 1895. And I was a little [?] then. Uncle Jim taught me to sing this song, and uh, my father gave me a fine wailing for singing it."

I'm a rambler and a gambler on a long way from home
And the folks that don’t like me can leave me alone
I eat when I'm hungry, I drink when I'm dry
And if whiskey don't kill me, I'll live 'til I die

I'm an old rebel soldier, that's just what I am
For your great constitution, I don’t give a damn
I fit in the army with Robert E. Lee
And all you damn Yankees can’t reconstruct me

I'm an old rebel soldier, I fit in the war
Killed a smart chance of yankees, I wished I killed more

[Laughing]

"That’s a fine song, I think I've heard that called 'The Reconstructed Rebel'"

"’The Reconstructed Rebel?'"

"Yeah"