Battle of the Kegs,' sung in the best style by a number of gentlemen " The following is the poem, which was sung in the Revolutionary army to the air of "Yankee Doodle:" Gallants attend and hear a friend trill forth harmonious ditty; As in amaze he stood to gaze, the truth can't be denied, sir, These kegs, I'm told, the rebels hold, packed up like pickled herring, And have come down to storm the town in this new way of ferrying. The soldier flew, the sailor too, and scared almost to death, sir, Wore out their shoes to spread the news, and ran till out of breath, sir. Now up and down, throughout the town, most frantic scenes were acted; And some ran here, and some ran there, like men almost distracted. Some fire cried, which some denied, but said the earth had quaked, And girls and boys, with hideous noise, ran through the streets half naked. Sir William, he, snug as a flea, a guest of Mrs. Loring, Dreamed of no harm as he lay warm in bed, and freely snoring. At his bed-side he then espied Sir Erskine at command, sir; The motley crew, in vessels new, with Satan for their guide, sir, The royal band now ready stand, all ranged in dread array, sir, The rebel dales, the rebel vales, with rebel trees surrounded; water. The kegs, 'tis said, tho' strongly made of rebel hoops and staves, sir, Could not oppose their powerful foes, the conquering British troops, sir. From morn till night these men of might displayed amazing cour age; And when the sun was fairly down, retired to sup their porridge. An hundred men, with each a pen or more, upon my word, sir, This was fun indeed for the negroes at Mount Vernon, and they made the song "distinguished" in the history of the Mount for nearly twenty years, when the harps of the sable serenaders were forever "hung upon the willows." No wonder they "patted juba," and danced it; for, to them, the idea was simply ridiculous, that the great Lord Howe and Sir William Erskine, who thought they could measure swords with the "rebel chief," would summon their officers, "pummel the drum," and draw up in line of battle to attack a regiment of floating kegs at midnight. But the idea that "Dem kegs, I'se told, de rebels hold, packed up like pickled herrin," was transporting, and the comic choirs would "adjine" for the night with a "bust" of enthusiasm. In Thacher's military journal we find the following account of the origin of the word Yankee, and of the phrase Yankee Doodle: “A farmer of Cambridge, Massachusetts, named Jonathan Hastings, who lived about the year 1713, used it as a favorite cant word to express excellence, as a Yankee good horse, or Yankee good cider. The students of the college, hearing him use it a great deal, adopted it, and called him Yankee Jonathan; and as he was rather a weak man, the students, when they wished to denote a character of that kind, would call him Yankee Jonathan. Like other cant words, it spread, and came finally to be applied to the New Englanders as a term of reproach. Mr. Lossing, in his Field Book, writes as follows: "The air Nancy Dawson, as well as the style of words, antedates the American Revolution by at least a century and a quarter. A song composed in derision of Cromwell by a loyal poet, commenced with, 'Nankey Doodle came to town, Riding on a pony; With a feather in his hat, Upon a macaroni.' A 'doodle' is defined in the old English dictionaries, to be a 'sorry trifling fellow,' and the term was applied to Cromwell in that sense. A macaroni was a knot, on which the feather was fastened. In a satirical poem accompanying a caricature of William Pitt in 1766, in which he appears on stilts, the following verse occurs: 'Stamp act! le diable! dat is de job, sir, Dat is in de stiltman's nob, sir; To be America's nabob, sir, Doodle, noodle, do.'" "Long before our Revolution, the air was known in New England as 'Lydia Fisher's jig,' and among other words was the verse, 'Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Lydia Fisher found it; Not a bit of money in it, Only binding round it.'" "A surgeon in the British army in Albany, in 1755, composed a song to that air, in derision of the uncouth appearance of the New England troops assembled there, and called it Yankey, instead of Nankey Doodle. The air was popular as martial music; and when in 1768, British troops arrived in Boston harbor, the 'Yankee Doodle tune,' says a writer at that time, 'was the capital piece in the band of music at Castle William.' The change in the spelling of Yankey was not made until after the Revolution. Trumbull, in his M'Fingal, uses the original orthography. While the British were yet in Boston, after the arrival of Washington at Cambridge in 1775, some poet among them wrote the following piece, in derision of the New England people. This is the original Yankee Doodle song of the Revolution." Father and I went down to camp, along with Captain Goodwin; And then he had a swampin' gun, big as a log of maple, On a deuced little cart-a load for daddy's cattle. And every time they fired it off it took a horn of powder, And daddy went as near again-I thought the deuce was in him. The troopers, too, would gallop up, and fire right in their faces; For 'lasses cakes, to carry home to give his wife and young ones. I seed another snarl of men, a digging graves they told me ; The following song, called "Adam's Fall," sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle, was composed by the British in derision of Washington, in 1775; but on the surrender of the Hessians at Trenton in 1776, it was thrust back on its authors by Will Lee and his peers to the sound of "Juba," in the hearing of the prisoners. When Congress sont great Washington, All clothed in power and breeches, 'Twas then he took his gloomy way, The women ran, de darkies, too, Old mother Hancock, wid a pan De rebel clowns, oh, what a sight And here and dar a nigger." At the surrender of Burgoyne in 1777, "General Gates was informed of the approach of Burgoyne, and with his staff met him at the head of his camp about a mile south of the Fish Creek, Burgoyne in a rich uniform of scarlet and gold, and Gates in a plain |