Eighteen hundred and sixty-one That's the year tfe war begun, Slithery-ayrie-eyrie-O! Workin' on the railroad ....
As their voices changed and their beards sprouted, the drummer-boys, cook-shack kids and "powder monkeys"* of the Civil War learned many a song from their grim elders. Now, 62 years after Appomattox Court House, few but drummer boys, cook-shack kids and "powder-monkeys" are left to sing those songs.
Of the 2,128,943 men who fought for the North, only some 47,000 remain alive in the Grand Army of the Republic. Last year the ranks were thinned by 5,963 deaths....
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