DESCRIPTION:
song copyright Will White (SOCAN/BMI)
performed at Zona's in Canmore, Alberta, June 5, 2009 by Will White, Juanita Brandt & Dale Ulan

Based on the true story of Sergeant Richard Rowland Kirkland of the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers, aka "The Angel of Marye's Heights"

lyrics:
They might have crossed the Rubicon and charged the gates of Hell
No mortal man could cross that land the Rebels raked so well
The soil was sown with flesh and bone and watered down with blood
As drops of rain they fell to stain that field of frozen mud, that field of frozen mud

A quarter mile of open ground beneath a wall of stone
Their feet did hardly touch the earth for treadin' on their own
The Yankees in their thousands dead and dying all around
Like rye before the reaper the Rebels cut them down, the Rebels cut them down

They lowered down their brims and turned their shoulders to the gale
The muzzles' roar, the sheets of flame, the balls came thick as hail
Those boys of Georgia sons of Caroline behind the wall
Unloosed their deadly ordinance and watched the Federals fall, they watched the Federals fall

The sun set like a hemorrhage that cold December day
Red northern lights did crackle o'er the wounded where they lay
Cries for water, death and loved ones filled the tortured air
To serenade the Rebels with their suffering and despair, their suffering and despair

Their screaming and their misery was more than I could stand
Their bodies torn and shattered from the doing of our hands
To die alone no family in unfamiliar land
They wore the Union colors but a man is still a man, a man is still a man

The boys decried my folly when I told to them my plan
To climb across that wall of stone into that slaughter pen
My suicide a certainty I'd not return again
But I had taken orders from beyond the realm of men, from beyond the realm of men

The Union boys they opened with a rifle ball or two
But soon their guns were silent, for they saw what I would do
A Rebel bearing water to the dying Yankee men
They drained what I could carry, then back to that well again, back to that well again

How many times I did return there to that killing place
See the desperate gratitude on some poor soldier's face
How many never lived to see their homes so far away
Dark visions burned in memory from what we saw that day, what we say that day

They might have crossed the Rubicon and charged the gates of Hell
No mortal man could cross that land the Rebels raked so well
The soil was sown with flesh and bone and watered down with blood
As drops of rain they fell to stain that field of frozen mud, that field of frozen mud