I wanna be in the cavalry if they send me off to war

I wanna good steed under me like my forefathers before


Courageous at first we took their worst, our positions we held stout

We clung to belief and we hung on the speech from our trusted leaders' mouths

Overwhelming odds and a hopeless cause and our cities overrun

There were them that said we was badly led and God were we outgunned


I lost count of the worthy mounts that from under me were cut

My favourite mare with her head in the air took the cannons in her gut

In the first two weeks on that bloody creek my brother lost his arm

Was only sixty days till all we prayed was get us home unharmed


O for the day that we signed our names and the well that we were wished

The men's congrats and the pats on the backs and the ladies that we kissed

The band that played and the grande parade and the patriotic shouts

All faded fast, didn't even last till the uniforms wore out


And there were none to replace nor to help us face the winters cold and bleak

That chilled to the bone the pneumonia prone and froze our bootless feet

Then the typhoid hit with its fevered fits, TB and dysentery

That proved in the end to have killed more men than the vilest enemy


We were finally forced to feed on horse and carcass we could scrounge

When the wagons stopped and we'd burnt their crops to charred and barren ground

With morale in doubt and our pride run out no honour did I see

All I seen were a thousand dreams piled dead in front of me


I wanna be in the cavalry if the send me off to war

I wanna be in the cavalry but I won't ride home no more