Richmond Is a Hard Road To Travel

Would you like to hear my song? I'm afraid it's rather long,
  Of the famous "On to Richmond" double trouble;
Of the half a dozen trips and half a dozen slips
  And the very latest bursting of the bubble.
'Tis pretty hard to sing and, like a round, round ring,
  'Tis a dreadful knotty puzzle to unravel;
Though all the papers swore, when we touched Virginia's shore,
  That Richmond was a hard road to travel.

Then pull off your overcoat and roll up your sleeve,
  For Richmond is a hard road to travel.
Then pull off your overcoat and roll up your sleeve,
  For Richmond is a hard road to travel, I believe.

First McDowell, bold and gay, set forth the shortest way
  By Manassas in the pleasant summer weather
But unfortunately ran on a Stonewall (foolish man!)
  And had a rocky journey altogether.
And he found it rather hard to ride over Beauregard
  And Johnston proved a deuce of a bother.
'Twas clear beyond a doubt that he didn't like the route
  And a second time would have to try another.

Then pull off your overcoat and roll up your sleeve,
  For Manassas is a hard road to travel.
Manassas gave us fits, and Bull Run made us grieve,
  For Richmond is a hard road to travel, I believe.

Next came the Woolly Horse with an overwhelming force
  To march down to Richmond by the Valley,
But he couldn't find the road, and his onward movement showed
  His campaigning was a mere shilly-shally.
Then Commissary Banks, with his motley foreign ranks
  Kicking up a great noise, fuss, and flurry,
Lost the whole of his supplies and with tears in his eyes
  From the Stonewall ran away in a hurry.

Then pull off your overcoat and roll up your sleeve,
  For the Valley is a hard road to travel.
The Valley wouldn't do, and we all had to leave,
  For Richmond is a hard road to travel, I believe.

Then the great Galena came, with her portholes all aflame,
  And the Monitor, that famous naval wonder,
But the guns at Drury's Bluff gave them speedily enough
  The loudest sort of regular Rebel thunder.
The Galena was astonished and the Monitor admonished,
  Our patent shot and shell were mocked at,
While the dreadful Naugatuck, by the hardest kind of luck,
  Was knocked into an ugly cocked hat.

Then pull off your overcoat and roll up your sleeve,
  For James River is a hard road to travel.
The gunboats gave up in terror and despair,
  For Richmond is a hard road to travel, I declare.

Then McClellan followed soon, both with spade and balloon,
  To try the Peninsular approaches,
But one and all agreed that his best rate of speed
  Was no faster than the slowest of slow coaches.
Instead of easy ground, at Williamsburg he found
  A Longstreet indeed and nothing shorter.
And it put him in the dumps that spades wasn't trumps
  And the hills he couldn't level "as he orter!"

Then pull off your overcoat and roll up your sleeve,
  For Longstreet is a hard road to travel.
Lay down the shovel and throw away the spade,
  For Richmond is a hard road to travel, I'm afraid.

Then said Lincoln unto Pope, "You can make the trip, I hope."
  "I will save the universal Yankee nation!
"To make sure of no defeat, I'll leave no lines of retreat,
  "And issue a famous proclamation!"
But that same dreaded Jackson, this fella laid his whacks on
  And made him, by compulsion, a seceder.
Pope took rapid flight from Manassas' second fight,
  'Twas his very last appearance as a leader.

Then pull off your overcoat and roll up your sleeve,
  Stonewall is a hard road to travel.
Pope did his very best but was evidently sold,
  For Richmond is a hard road to travel, I am told.

Last of all Burnside, with his pontoon bridges, tried
  A road no one had thought of before him,
With two hundred thousand men for the Rebel slaughter pen
  And the blessed Union flag waving o'er him.
He met a fire like hell of canister and shell
  That mowed down his men with great slaughter.
'Twas a shocking sight to view, that second Waterloo,
  And the river ran with more blood than water.

Then pull off your overcoat and roll up your sleeve,
  Rappahannock is a hard road to travel.
Burnside got in a trap, which caused for him to grieve,
  For Richmond is a hard road to travel, I believe.

We are very much perplexed to know who is the next
  To command the new Richmond expedition,
For the capital must blaze, and that in ninety days,
  And Jeff and his men be sent to perdition.
We'll take the cursed town, and then we'll burn it down
  And plunder and hang each cursed Rebel.
Yet the contraband was right when he told us they would fight:
  "Oh, yes, massa, dey will fight like the debil!"

Then pull off your overcoat and roll up your sleeve,
  For Richmond is a hard road to travel.
Then pull off your overcoat and roll up your sleeve,
  For Richmond is a hard road to travel, I believe.