Railroad bridge is washing down the gorge at Sandy Ford

Where you stand there on the shoreline, oh will you come aboard

Come aboard

This might be the last ketch running, might not be no more

While they bloody up the water upstream, making civil war

Civil war

Oh, Barbara Lee, reckon I got to go

Cross Caroline and points below

By the time tobacco's ripe and ready to be dried

They might come and catch me if I've got no place to hide

Place to hide

If I am rested I might have join the war

One side or another, I may see your face no more

Face no more

Oh, Barbara Lee, reckon I got to go

Cross Caroline and points below

This is my faithful promise which I make of my free will

I may point my gun and fire but I won't shoot to kill

Shoot to kill

I'll keep your picture with me, right here near my heart

Inside this leather notebook, thick enough to stop a dart

Stop a dart

Follow in the footsteps of the wind

As it rolls east to west and back again

Treat me like a stranger if I ever cross your door

Another faceless soldier in the time of civil war

I know you don't love me but you could if you took time

I got a face like Lincoln, and if ugly was a crime

Was a crime

They'd lock me up and throw away the key down clear to hell

But I got a disposition sweet as April in the dell

In the dell

Oh, Barbara Lee, reckon I got to go

Cross Caroline and points below

Sugar in the sugar bin and honey in the hive

I do what I have to do in order to survive

To survive

What they do in civil war, in peacetime they call crime

Climb inside my dream of love and pray for better times

Better times

Oh, Barbara Lee, reckon I got to go

Cross Caroline and points below

Oh, Barbara Lee, reckon I got to go

Cross Caroline and points below

Copyright: Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Writer(s): JIM LAUDERDALE, ROBERT C. HUNTER