Tennessee Ernie Ford Marching Song (of The First Arkansas Negro Regiment)
Oh, we’re the bully soldiers of the “First of
Arkansas,”
We are fighting for the Union, we are fighting for the
law,
We can hit a Rebel further than a white man ever saw,
As we go marching on.
Chorus:
Glory, glory hallelujah.
Glory, glory hallelujah.
Glory, glory hallelujah.
As we go marching on.
See, there above the center, where the flag is waving
bright,
We are going out of slavery; we’re bound for freedom’s
light;
We mean to show Jeff Davis how the Africans can fight,
As we go marching on!
(Chorus)
We have done with hoeing cotton, we have done with
hoeing corn,
We are colored Yankee soldiers, now, as sure as you are
born;
When the masters hear us yelling, they’ll think it’s
Gabriel’s horn,
As we go marching on.
(Chorus)
They will have to pay us wages, the wages of their sin,
They will have to bow their foreheads to their colored
kith and kin,
They will have to give us house-room, or the roof shall
tumble in!
As we go marching on.
(Chorus)
We heard the Proclamation, master hush it as he will,
The bird he sing it to us, hoppin’ on the cotton hill,
And the possum up the gum tree, he couldn’t keep it
still,
As he went climbing on.
(Chorus)
They said, “Now colored brethren, you shall be forever
free,
From the first of January, Eighteen hundred sixty-
three.”
We heard it in the river going rushing to the sea,
As it went sounding on.
(Chorus)
Father Abraham has spoken and the message has been
sent,
The prison doors he opened, and out the pris’ners went,
To join the sable army of “African descent,”
As we go marching on.
(Chorus)
Then fall in, colored brethren, you’d better do it
soon,
Don’t you hear the drum a-beating the Yankee Doodle
tune?
We are with you now this morning, we’ll be far away at
noon,
As we go marching on.
(Chorus)
