The year of Eighteen Sixty-Five, when Lincoln lay there dead,
The war was all but over, though there was wreckage spread.
The Blue and Gray divided what once had seemed so strong,
And folks still argue who was right, and who was mostly wrong.
Brothers fought their brothers, and families split apart,
While politicians everywhere performed their favorite art.
At Fort Sumter it commenced, or so the textbooks say,
Though every town has someone who explains it a different way.
Oh, the war is still on, though the cannon smoke has gone,
And the soldiers all have vanished from the field.
For the battle flags and bumper stickers
Keep producing modern bickers,
And the wounds have never really, truly healed.
The slaves were not the forefront when the fighting first began,
Though preserving the Union was the stated battle plan.
Then emancipation entered and transformed the whole affair,
Which still leaves amateur historians pulling out their hair.
Johnny Reb came marching home, though home was not the same,
The courthouse had a different flag, the county had a name.
"There is no more Gray, just Blue," the victors proudly cried,
While half the nation muttered that they'd rather not decide.
Oh, the war is still on, though the uniforms are gone,
And Appomattox closed the shooting down.
Yet a century and a half later,
Everyone's a commentator,
And they're reenacting Facebook in each town.
A President was murdered while the nation held its breath,
And Reconstruction stumbled through the aftermath of death.
The ties that once had bound them had become a fraying thread,
And some preferred to fight in books instead of fight with lead.
Sherman took a seaward stroll that wasn't greatly praised,
And left a trail behind him where the countryside was razed.
The beauty of the South was scorched in one tremendous sweep,
Which historians discuss whenever they can't sleep.
Oh, the war is still on, though the bugles have withdrawn,
And the generals have long since passed away.
Every monument erected
Leaves somebody quite affected,
And somebody else offended by the display.
The slaves were granted freedom by the ending of the fight,
Though freedom with no money is a complicated right.
Many stayed and sharecropped on the very selfsame land,
With a different legal status and the same old calloused hands.
"You're free!" the nation told them. "Now go prosper and be glad!"
They answered, "That sounds splendid. Any chance of cash to add?"
The answer was a silence that could stretch from coast to coast,
Which made emancipation feel a little like a ghost.
Oh, the war is still on, though the rifles all are gone,
And the cavalry no longer rides the plain.
For the questions left unanswered
Have apparently transferred
To a hundred newer arguments again.
Grant and Lee at Appomattox shook hands and called it done,
But messages moved slowly in the days before Verizon.
So while peace was being celebrated far away with cheers,
Some unfortunate young fellows still were collecting souvenirs.
Three-quarters of a million gave their lives upon the field,
A price no reconstruction ever quite managed to yield.
The nation split apart itself to build itself anew,
Which sounds impressive written down—but was it really true?
Oh, the war is still on, though a hundred years have gone,
And another sixty years have tagged along.
For we're still debating statues,
Flags, elections, schools, and values,
And insisting that our side is right and strong.
So if Johnny Reb's in blue now, and the Union has survived,
And the country somehow staggered out the other side alive,
Then perhaps the strangest lesson from that tragic, ****** fray
Is that the guns all stopped in 1865...
But the arguments are marching still today. ♫