My dearest Darlin', I write you not,
Rather pray you hear me through the proxy God.
For upon this field I lay here now,
With numbness cold and a blood-soaked brow.
There are things to you I never did say.
I so pray you hear me this very day.
For it was in the Army of Tennessee, I left my home,
And on our fathers' fields resigned to roam.
Slaves I owned not, but for land I have fought,
And at the end of each day, it's you that I've sought.

The principles of war render antiquated,
With my brothers' blood, our colors faded.
And if ended just now, this war was halted,
Determined I'd find you, without slightest falter.
But ended it's not, and with death I am fraught,
Thus when I expire, you'll be my only thought.
For Darlin' I think of you with every step,
For you I've prayed, and for you I've wept.
The fragrance of your hair has accompanied me,
Through rain, through snow, through hunger and disease.

And when it's time to fire my Enfield musket,
For country it's not true, but for love nearly perfect.
In this war I've marched to many places,
And of the friends I have lost, forgotten their faces.
But there's one face always I've forgotten not,
It's the face of my Darlin' that fills my thought.
And if absence makes the heart grow fonder,
With war the heart is made to mourn the yonder.
In this moment Darlin', my time has grown desperate,
And within a heartbeat, I'll take final respite.

So as I pass here on the battlefield Franklin,
Will your soul feel the force of its other half taken?
Will my God lay upon you my solemn prayer?
Or will you continue waiting yet another year?
And if you should never hear my solemn prayer,
You may ask your brother, for he was here.
In the moment I fell, I saw his face,
But it was in an unfamiliar place.
For Darlin' he's slain me, and just as I keeled,
I saw his musket, his sorrow, his death afield.