Twas midnight when we built our fires
 We marched at half past three
 We know not when our march shall end
 Nor care–we follow Lee.
 The starlight gleams on many a crest
 And many a well-trod blade
 This handful marching on our left
 This lin’ is our brigade.
 Our lin’ is short because its veins
 So lavishly have bled
 The missing search the countless planes
 For battles it has led
 There are those Georgians on the right
 Their ranks are thinin’ too
 How in one company they say
 They now can count but two
 There’s not much talkin’ down the lines
 Nor shoutin’ down the gloam [twilight
 For when the night is ’round us
 Then we’re thinkin’ most of home
 I saw a young soldier startled
 When we passed an open glade
 Where the low starlight, leaf, and bough
 A fairy picture made
 Nor has he uttered a word since then
 My heart can whisper why
 ‘Twas like the spot in Texas
 Where he bade his love goodbye
 And when beyond us carelessly
 Some soldier sang “Adieu”
 My comrade here across his eyes
 His coarse sleeve roughly drew
 So scarcely sound of trampling feet
 Is echoed through the gloom
 Because when stars are brightest then
 We’re thinkin’ most of home
 Hush, what an echo startles up
 Around this rocky hill
 Was a shell half buried struck my foot?
 Or stay–’tis a human skull?
 This ridge I surely seem to know
 By light of the rising moon
 While we battled here three mortal hours
 One Sunday afternoon
 Last spring, you see where our captain stands
 His head drooped on his breast
 At his feet that heap of bones and earth
 You know know why his rest
 Is broke off, and why his sword
 was so bitter in the fray
 ‘Tis the grave of his only brother
 Who was killed that awful day
 Hush, for in front I hear a shot
 And then a well-known cry
 It is the foe! See where the flames
 Mount upward to the sky
 It is the full hot breath we hear
 We wait the comin’ sun
 And ‘ere these stars may shine again
 A field is lost or won
 Is won! It is the old brigade
 This line of stalwart men
 The long roll, how it thrills my heart
 To hear that sound again
 God shield us boys! Here breaks the day
 The stars begin to fade
 Now steady here! Fall in! Fall in!
 Forward the old brigade!