Take Me Back to the Southland

     From 1997 thru 2003 I re-enacted Civil War Cavalry at battlefields and
     historical sites in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
     Sitting around the Campfires at night, we would pull out an old guitar and
     entertain ourselves with period songs like "Lorena," "Home Sweet Home," 
     "Bonnie Blue Flag" and dozens of others. Chris Malone, of Jackson Tennessee,
     was a veteran in my unit, the 7th Tenn Cavalry. He taught me this song while
     we were camping at the Stones River Battlefield. Sgt Malone had heard it at
     another re-enactment, and did not know where it came from. Years later, I 
     discovered that it was written by Carl Jackson, and recorded by The Bluegrass
     Cardinals under the title "Rebel's Last Request"


     G7      C                       Am
          1863 was an awful place to be
       F                      G            C     G7
     I never thought that I'd make it out alive
                         C                                 Am
     but a dying man's request, helped me pass that rugged test
         F              G   C
     and see the end in 1865

     He called me to his side and just before he died
     This Rebel soldier made it clear to me
     That his one last desire, Before his soul it did retire
     Was to return home and there forever be

     [ C                    Am                     ]
     [ Take me back to the Southland               ]
     [ F     G           C     G7                  ]
     [ Mississippi is my home                      ]
     [ C                      Am                   ]
     [ Let me rest, with its green fields above me ]
     [ F     G            C                        ]
     [ Never more shall I roam                     ]

     So I dug a shallow grave marked the spot where he was layed
     By a nearby lonesome weeping willow tree
     And in case I lost my knife, Or another took my life
     I carved those final words he said to me

     [cHORUS]

     1865 and I made it out alive
     So I returned to 'fill his final plea
     But I found no body there, just a feeling in the air
     and the words had changed upon that wILLOW tree

     [ He's gone back to the Southland                ]
     [ Missisippi is his home                         ]
     [ He's at rest with those green fields above him ]
     [ Never more shall he roam                        ]