How are you, boys? I'm just from camp,

And feel as brave as CÆsar;

The sound of bugle, drum, and fife

Has raised my Ebenezer.

I'm full of fight, odds shot and shell,

I 'll leap into the saddle,

And when the Yankees see me come,

Lord, how they will skedaddle!

Hold up your head, up, Shanghai, Shanks,

Don't shake your knees and blink so,

It is no time to dodge the act;

Brave comrades, don't you think so?

I was a ploughboy in the field,

A gawky, lazy dodger,

When came the conscript officer

And took me for a sodger.

He put a musket in my hand,

And showed me how to fire it;

I marched and countermarched all day;

Lord, how I did admire it!

With corn and hog fat for my food,

And digging, guarding, drilling,

I got as thin as twice-skimmed milk,

And was scarcely worth the killing.

And now I'm used to homely fare,

My skin as tough as leather,

I do guard duty cheerfully

In every kind of weather.

I'm brimful of fight, my boys,

I would not give a "thank ye"

For all the smiles the girls can give

Until I've killed a Yankee.

High private is a glorious rank,

There's wide room for promotion;

I 'll get a corporal's stripes some day,

When fortune's in the notion.

'T is true I have not seen a fight,

Nor have I smelt gunpowder,

But then the way I 'll pepper 'em

Will be a sin to chowder.

A sergeant's stripes I now will sport,

Perhaps be color-bearer,

And then a captain—good for me—

I 'll be a regular tearer.

I'll then begin to wear the stars,

And then the wreaths of glory,

Until the army I command,

And poets sing my story.

Our Congress will pass votes of thanks

To him who rose from zero,

The people in a mass will shout,

Hurrah, behold the hero!

(Fires his gun by accident.)

What's that? oh dear! a boiler's burst,

A gaspipe has exploded,

Maybe the Yankees are hard by

With muskets ready loaded.

On, gallant soldiers, beat'em back,

I 'll join you in the frolic,

But I 've a chill from head to foot,

And symptoms of the colic.

The spirit of the Southern women is well known to have been as vigorous and determined as that of their brothers, and the sacrifices which they were compelled to make were much more severe and general than at the North. They had been dependent upon the North and foreign countries for clothing and the luxuries of the household, and when these sources of supply were cut off by the war and the blockade, they had to make and sew their own homespun dresses, and forego all the delights of fashion and adornment. The sacrifices and devotion of the daughters of the South were sung in turgid rhetoric, like the threats and appeals of the men, but here is a genuine voice, evidently a woman's own, which speaks for her sisters in their homelier trials, as well as in their deeper emotions:—