Reply #14: From the movie "The Last Outlaw"

[Reciprocity]

Also Jerry Garcia
Played by an unnamed bluegrass band with Garcia on banjo at an unknown venue in Burlingame in January 1962.

The Unreconstructed Rebel

O, I'm a good old Rebel,
Now, that's just what I am;
For this "Fair land of Freedom"
I do not care a damn.
I am glad I fit against it-
I only wish we'd won,
And I don't want no pardon
For anything I done.

I hates the Constitution,
The great Republic, too;
I hate the Freedmen's buro
In uniforms of blue;
I hate the nasty eagle,
With all his brag and fuss,
And the lyin' thievin' Yankees,
I hates 'em wuss and wuss.

I hates the Yankee nation
And everything they do;
I hates the Declaration
Of Independence, too;
I hates the striped banner-
'Tis dripping with our blood;
I hates the glorious Union-
I fit it all I could.

I followed old Mas' Robert
For four years, near about;
Got wounded in three places,
And starved at Point Lookout;
I cotched the rheumatism
A-campin' in the snow,
But I killed a chance o' Yankees-
I'd like to kill some mo'.

Three hundred thousand Yankees
Is stiff in Southern dust;
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us.
They died of Southern fever
And Southern steel and shot-
I wish there was three million
Instead of what we got.

I can't take up my musket
And fight 'em now no more,
Now that is sartin, sure;
And I don't want no pardon,
For Reb I was and am,
I won't be reconstructed,
And I don't care a damn.

From the ...
The Grateful Dead Family Discography


Words by Major Innes Randolph. The source of the tune is unknown. Possibly written at the end of the 19th century. It was published with a connected article in Collier's Weekly on the 4th April 1914. The song possibly also occurs as The Unreconstructed Rebel and The Song of the Rebel Soldier. Maybe also the same song as I Don't Want A Pardon.

On circulating tapes of the Burlingame show the song is often listed as I'm A Rebel but this is not the correct title. The song is introduced apologetically at the Burlingame show with the assurance that it does not express their own opinions - the lyrics explain why;

http://www.deaddisc.com/songs/Good_Old_Rebel.htm