Memorial Day

 Memorial Day was originally specifically designated as a day to remember the Union dead of the American Civil War.  Eventually, it became a day to honor all our war dead, and modern commemorations often pay respects to the men of both sides, as I will today.  More about that later.  First I am posting the full lyrics to an anti-war song about a conflict that killed about 700,000 Americans, more than all our other wars combined.  I posted a snippet from this last year, but in these times, I think the whole poem is worth a read:

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Virgil Caine is the name,
And I served on the Danville train,
'Til Stoneman's cavalry
Came and tore up the tracks again.
In the winter of '65,
We were hungry, just barely alive.
By May the tenth, Richmond had fell,
It's a time I remember, oh so well, 

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,
And the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,
And the people were singin'.
They went Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na,

Back with my wife in Tennessee,
When one day she called to me,
"Virgil, quick, come see,
there goes Robert E. Lee!"
Now I don't mind, I'm choppin' wood,
and I don't care if the money's no good.
Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest,
But they should never have taken the very best.
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down . . .
 
Like my father before me,
I will work the land,
Like my brother above me,
Who took a rebel stand.
He was just eighteen, proud and brave,
But a Yankee laid him in his grave,
I swear by the mud below my feet,
You can't raise a Caine back up
When he's in defeat.

The night they drove old Dixie down . . . 

Written by Robbie Robertson

Have we learned our lesson?