In my prison cell I sit thinking,
Mother dear, of you,
And my happy Southern home
so far away;
And mine eyes they fill with tears
spite of all that I can do,
Though I try to cheer my comrades
and be gay.

Tramp-Tramp-Tramp,
the boys are marching;
Cheer up comrades, they will come.
And beneath the stars and bars
we shall breathe the air again
Of freemen in our own beloved home.

In the battle front we stood
when their fiercest charge they made,
And our soldiers by the thousands
sank to die;
But before they reached our lines;
they were driven back dismayed,
And "the rebel yell" went upward
to the sky.

Now our great commander Lee
crosses broad Potomac's stream,
And his legions marching northward take their way.
On Pennsylvania's roads
will their trusty muskets gleam,
And her iron hills shall echo to the fray.

In the cruel stockade-pen dying
slowly day by day,
For weary months we've waited
all in vain;
But if God will speed the way
of our gallant boys in gray,
I shall see your face, dear mother,
yet again.

When I close my eyes in sleep
all the dear ones round me come;
At night my little sister to me calls;
And mocking visions bring
all the warm delights of home,
While we freeze and starve in
Northern prison walls.

So the weary days go by,
and we wonder as we sigh,
If with sight of home we'll
never more be blest.
Our hearts within us sink,
and we murmur, though we try
To leave it all with him who
knoweth best.

Tramp-Tramp-Tramp
the boys are marching;
Cheer up comrades, they will come.
And beneath the stars and bars
we shall breathe the air again
Of freemen in our own beloved home.