I Wanna Be In The Cavalry: Reprise

Well, I wanna be in the cavalry if they send me off to war
 Well, 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
 Well, I lost count of the worthy mounts that from under me were cut
 My favourite mare with her head in the air took the cannon 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 to get us home unharmed
 O for the day that we signed our
 Names and the well that we were wished
 The mens congrats and the pats on
 The backs and the ladies that we kissed
 The band that played, and the grand parade, and the patriotic shouts
 They 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
 The chill to the bone and the
 Pnuemonia 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
 Well, I wanna be in the cavalry if they send me off to war
 Well, I wanna be in the cavalry but I won't ride home no more