January 2014 Meeting: SCV Private Bryan Jackson Buck Camp # 1769, Peletier NC

Compatriot Andrew Velez gave a most interesting lecture on his Great, Great Grandfather Basil Merrill Riggs.  Private Riggs enlisted from Onslow County, NC on July 1, 1861 for the War and was mustered in as a drummer boy. He was wounded on July 1, 1862 near Richmond Virginia and returned to duty January 1863.  He was wounded again and captured at Gettysburg July 3, 1863.  The date including his parole and exchange are missing from the records.  Private Riggs next shows up on his company's muster rolls as being absent wounded and on parole from September until October 1863 until admitted to a hospital in Richmond April 10, 1864 with gunshot wound of the neck.  Absent sick through August 1864.  Captured once again on September 22, 1864 at Fisher's Hill, Virginia and confined at Point Lookout, Maryland ("starved at Point Lookout.") until paroled and sent to Aiken's Landing, James River, Virginia for exchange on March 17, 1865.

GOOD OL' REBEL SOLDIER
by Major Innes Randolph, C.S.A.

Oh, I'm a good old Rebel soldier, now that's just what I am;
For this "Fair Land of Freedom" I do not give a damn!
I'm glad I fit against it, I only wish we'd won,
And I don't want no pardon for anything I done.

I hates the Constitution, this "Great Republic," too!
I hates the Freedman's Bureau and uniforms of blue!
I hates the nasty eagle with all its brags and fuss,
And the lying, thieving Yankees, I hates 'em wuss and wuss!

I hates the Yankee nation and everything they do,
I hates the Declaration of Independence, too!
I hates the "Glorious Union" -- 'tis dripping with our blood,
And I hates their striped banner, and I fit it all I could.

I followed old Marse Robert for four years, near about,
Got wounded in three places, and starved at Point Lookout.
I cotched the "roomatism" a'campin' in the snow,
But I killed a chance o' Yankees, and I'd like to kill some mo'!

Three hundred thousand Yankees is stiff in Southern dust!
We got three hundred thousand before they conquered us.
They died of Southern fever and Southern steel and shot,
But I wish we'd got three million instead of what we got.

I can't take up my musket and fight 'em now no more,
But I ain't a'gonna love 'em, now that's for sartain sure!
I do not want no pardon for what I was and am,
And I won't be reconstructed, and I do not care a damn!