Well I come from the valley, I'm a rebel boy.
Born on the banks of the Shenandoah.
In sixty-one, I went to the war,
To win one for Virginia!
Ya my brother went first and they called me to.
I was green as clover in the morning dew.
So I marched to the drum and I sang to the tune.
Carry me back to Virginia!
Fire in the cannon, water in the well,
Raced through the valley with a rebel yell.
I learned right quick how to march like hell and affix that bayonet.
Won't ya carry me back?
Won't ya carry me back?
Carry me back to Virginia.
With a sword and a saddle,
Powder in the gun.
We thought for a minute our fight was done.
So they lined us up to the metals arm,
And hammered us into the quicksand.
Then they burned that valley in a blaze of fire,
Cut through the lands like a red hot iron.
Til the men took cover where the horses piled,
Then we shivered and then hold against them.
But the war raged on like flames of hell,
We dug through the pockets of the ones who fell,
Dressed in rags and we ate that grass
When they cut off our legs we cried!
Won't ya carry me back?
Won't ya carry me back?
Carry me back to Virginia.
Won't ya carry me back?
Won't ya carry me back?
Carry me back to Virginia.
And they died in the valley,
Died in the swamp,
On the banks of the river where the whitetail jumped.
Died in the ditches,
Died in the fields,
In the belly of a wagon for a woman's to heal
Died in the war,
Starved in the camps.
Locked in the prisons of a meaner man.
Spilled our blood in the fight to defend
And to bury the tome of a-dixieland!
Down in Alabama,
Down in Caroline,
Way down in Gerogie, on the Tennesee line.
We fought for the rebels, and Robert E. Lee,
Now we want to go home to Virginia.
Say we want to go home to Virginia!
Won't ya carry me back?
Won't ya carry me back?
Carry me back to Virginia.
Won't ya carry me back?
Won't ya carry me back?
I wanna be buried in Virginia!
