War! What is it good for?

Yesterday, April 12, was the 145th anniversary of the Shot Heard Round the World, the opening volley at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, in the Internal American War which eventually killed 560,000 men and changed the American political landscape forever. GrouchoGandhi celebrated the day with a most interesting article discussing recently published first-hand reports of Civil War participants.


Handsome Johnny
Words and music by Richie Havens

Hey, look yonder, tell me what's that you see
Marching to the fields of Concord?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with a musket in his hand,
Marching to the Concord war, hey marching to the Concord war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see
Marching to the fields of Gettysburg?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with a flintlock in his hand,
Marching to the Gettysburg war, hey marching to the Gettysburg war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what's that you see
Marching to the fields of Dunkirk?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with a carbine in his hand,
Marching to the Dunkirk war, hey marching to the Dunkirk war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see
Marching to the fields of Korea?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with an M1 in his hand,
Marching to the Korean war, hey marching to the Korean war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see
Marching to the fields of Vietnam?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with an M15,
Marching to the Vietnam war, hey marching to the Vietnam war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see
Marching to the fields of Birmingham?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with his hand rolled in a fist,
Marching to the Birmingham war, hey marching to the Birmingham war.

Hey, it's a long hard road, it's a long hard road,
It's a long hard road, before we'll be free.

Hey, what's the use of singing this song, some of you are not even listening.
Tell me what it is we've got to do: wait for our fields to start glistening,
Wait for the bullets to start whistling.
Here comes a hydrogen bomb, here comes a guided missile,
Here comes a hydrogen bomb: I can almost hear its whistle.


Additional reading:

• Masons during the Civil War
• Freemasonry and the Civil War: A House Undivided
• Zeredatha Lodge #483 & National Zouave Lodge, U.D.: New York Lodges Bound Together by a Civil War Mason — Salmon Winchester
• Brotherhood in Battle: Masons in the Civil War

Freemasonry | Civil War | War Between the States | Union Army | Confederacy | Richie Havens | Handsome Johnny