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A Life on the Vicksburg Bluff

Song performed by: Dean Potter (vocals) and Tara Dirst (piano). Recording engineer: Matt Dotson.

A. Dalsheimer
Tune: "A Life On The Ocean Wave"

1. A life on the Vicksburg bluff,
A home in the trenches deep,
Where we dodge Yank shells enough,
And our old peabread won't keep,
On old Logan's beef I pine,
For there's fat on his bones no more;
Oh! give me some pork and brine,
And truck from a sutler's store.

Refrain.
A life on the Vicksburg bluff,
A home in the trenches deep.
Where we dodge Yank shells enough
And our old peabread won't keep,
Peabread, peabread,
Our old peabread won't keep;
Peabread, peabread,
Our old peabread won't keep.

2. Old Grant is starving us out,
Our grub is wasting away,
Pemb don't know what he's about,
And he hasn't for many a day.
So we'll bury old Logan tonight,
From tough beef we'll be set free;
We'll put him in a bomb-proof for me,
And a tear on old Logan's grave.

Refrain.

3. Texas steers are no longer in view,
Mule steaks are now "done up brown,"
While peabread, mule roast and mule stew,
Are our fare in Vicksburg town.
And the song of our heart shall be,
While the Yanks and their gunboats rave;
A life in a bomb-proof for me,
And a tear on old Logan's grave.

Refrain.

© 2005 Mark Twain's Mississippi River