SATURDAY | McClellan poetry day! And I'm off on the wrong foot with a lyric I should have presented last week in honor of St. Patrick's Day: We'll Fight for Uncle Sam. It's set to a drinking song, "Whiskey in the Jar" (MP3 here). Use the link, and you can actually sing the song.

Now, if there's one thing worse than doggerel, perhaps it's doggerel written in dialect. May be worth slogging through to get to couplets like:

And, once again, the Stars and Stripes will to the breeze be swellin’,
If Uncle Abe will give us back our darling boy McClellan.

The music link will support a slow connection and the tune is a good one.

WE’LL FIGHT FOR UNCLE SAM

I am a modern hairo; my name is Paddy Kearney;

Not long ago I landed from the bogs of sweet Killarney;

I used to cry out : Soap Fat! Bekase that was my trade, sir,

Till I ‘listed for a Soger-boy wid Corcoran’s brigade, sir.

CHORUS: For to fight for Uncle Sam;

He’ll lade us on to glory, O!,

He’ll lade us on to glory, O!

To save the Stripes and Stars.

Ora, once in regimentals, my mind it did bewildher.

I bid good-bye to Biddy dear, and all the darling childher;

Whoo! Says I, the Irish Volunteers the divil a one afraid is,

Bekase we’ve got the soger bould, McClellan for to lade us.

CHORUS: For to fight for Uncle Sam,

He’ll lade us on to glory, O!,

He’ll lade us on to glory, O!

To save the Stripes and Stars.

We soon got into battle: we made a charge of bay’nets:

The Rebel blaggards soon gave way: they fell as thick as paynuts.

Och hone! The slaughter that we made, bedad it was delighting!

For, the Irish lads in action are the divil’s boys for fighting.

CHORUS: They’ll fight for Uncle Sam,

He’ll lade us on to glory, O!,

He’ll lade us on to glory, O!

To save the Stripes and Stars.


Och, sure, we never will give in, in any sort of manner,

Until the South comes back again, beneath the Starry-Banner:

And if John Bull should interfere, he’d suffer for it truly;

For, soon the Irish Volunteers would give him Ballyhooly.

CHORUS: Oh! they’ll fight for Uncle Sam,

He’ll lade us on to glory, O!,

He’ll lade us on to glory, O!

To save the Stripes and Stars.


And now before I ind my song, this free advice I’ll tender;

We soon will use the Rebels up, and make them all surrender,

And, once again, the Stars and Stripes will to the breeze be swellin’,

If Uncle Abe will give us back our darling boy McClellan.

CHORUS: Oh! we’ll follow little Mac,

He’ll lade us on to glory, O!,

He’ll lade us on to glory, O!

To save the Stripes and Stars.