FAMILY HISTORY: POETRY Collection written by Elsie Strawn ARMSTRONG
  
  File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Les Howard Strawn
  
  Copyright 2006.  All rights reserved.
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/
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  By your underhanded meanness,
      Your lying and deception,
  You've got our Democratic boys
      In such a sad condition.
  
  They are still writing home
      How bad they were deceived,
  To have to fight for the Constitution
      And the Union, they are grieved.
  
  Poor men, before they started,
      They thought they would send home,
  A part of each month's wages,
      That to their families would come.
  
  Month after month passed by,
      No money they received,
  And when the winter came,
      Oh!  How their hearts were grieved.
  
  To think of their poor families
      In a deplorable condition,
  Themselves half clothed, half fed,
      All for abolition.
  
  But, O, their suffering families,
      Perhaps starving, freezing, dying,
  Resolved they would go to them
      Or kill themselves a trying.
  
  Soon after they got there,
      A posse came to take them,
  Put cold irons on their limbs,
      And back to slaughter takes them.
  
  Their children clinging to them,
      Crying, "Father, do not go!"
  The wife in deepest anguish
      Sobbing, "Why must this be so?"
  
  For the Negro, Madam, for the Negro,
      For the Negro, don't you see?
  If every white man's blood is shed,
      The Negro must be free.