cd: The Civil War Anthology
track 9: Bull Run
We joined the Union army
4 years gone from county Cork
A corps of hardened Irish
from the ghettos of New York
We followed brave McDowell
to a Manassas riverbed
And the water at Bull Run
runs blood red
I brought my brother Seamus
and it took him to his death
I held him close against me
as he took his final breath
He called to his dear Maggie
who he never now will wed
And the water at Bull Run
runs blood red
CHORUS
With memories of old Ireland
surging through my blood
I’m bogged down in Virginia,
in the bodies and the mud
My brother lies beside me
with a bullet in his head
And the water at Bull Run
runs blood red
CHORUS
They question our allegiance
are they blue or are they green
We only hope to prove to be
the best they’ve ever seen
How can they choose to doubt us
with so many hundred dead
And the water at Bull Run
runs blood red
The rebel reinforcements
spelled our doom
when day was done
They cut our ranks to pieces
we were routed, overrun
I listen to the dying
and I fear what lies ahead
And the water at Bull Run
runs blood red
CHORUS
The horrors of the homeland
are imbedded in my mind
We dreamed of our new freedom
and the hope we’d sure to find
Surrounded by this carnage
now I question why I fled
And the water at Bull Run
runs blood red
CHORUS
© 2003 All Rights Reserved
Dulahan Music
Written by Kyle Aughe