Digital Tradition Mirror

The Yankees Are Coming

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

The Yankees Are Coming

The Yankees are coming! Away! Which way?
Who saw them? Do tell us. And what did they:
Are they infantry, cavalry! How many? How far?
    Fifteen hundred, they say, and are at Lamar.

The Yankees are coming! They'll be here by daylight
Until the brave Mitchell should put them to flight,
Or ambush and whip them, as often he has done,
With his handful of men and their double-barrel'd gun

The Yankees are coming! Did you hear that drum?
Hark! Boom goes the cannon! They surely do come,
With matches! They'll steal the last mule that we have,
For thieves they are all, up to Grant and his staff.

The Yankees are coming! Send the news round and round.
They're many, says a courier; but three miles from town.
Oh, mercy! they are here. You may run if you will,
But yonder they rise o'er the top of a hill.

The Yankees are coming! See, they dash through the street
Some are looking for mules, and others for meat.
Bang! Down goes the door, and out go the mules,
With saddles and harness and all sorts of tools.

The Yankees are come, vile thieves that they are.
Thus are old men and women to wage such a war.
They spoil all our gardens; not a chicken they spare,
To the old sitting hen and the clothes your babes wear.

The Yankees are come! Yes, alas it is true,
Each one of them breeched in his sky blue.
I hear their sabers. Clatter, clatter! they go.
How fiendish they look! They're jayhawkers, I know.

The Yankees are come--yes, the worst of the crew,
From Iowa, Kansas and Illinois too.
To restore the blest Union at Abraham's call,
The negroes set free and drive Secesh to the wall.

g  The Yankees are come! How madly they rave!
The rebellion they'll crush and Vicksburg they'll have.
In their efforts they say they will never relax
Till Pemberton's whipped, or they die in their tracks.

to  The Yankees are come, the flower of the West!
Of all that Lincoln has, they say they're the best.
That Richmond still stands, or they are........
.................................

From Folksongs of Mississippi, Hudson
Collected from Martha Gardner, MS
It is said at Red Banks that the song was sung to the tune of "The
Campbells Are Coming."
RG
apr97

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!