Texas Rangers

Come all ye Texas Rangers wherever you may be,
I'll tell to you a story that happened unto me.
One night the age of fifteen years I joined a royal band,
We marched from San Antonio unto the Rio Grande.

And yet the captain told us,
Perhaps he thought it right,
" Before we reach the station, boys,
I'm sure we'll have to fight"'

We saw the Indians coming,
We heard them give their yell;
My feelings at that moment
No tongue could ever tell.

We saw their glittering lances,
Their arrows round us hailed.
My heart was sink (sic) within me,
My courage almost failed.

I thought of my old mother,
Who in tears to me did say:
"To you they all are strangers,
With me you'd better stay."

I thought her weak and childish,
And that she did not know,
For I was bent on roaming
And I was bound to go.

We fought them full five hours
Before the fight gave o'er.
Three hundred of our soldiers
Lay weltering in their gore.

Three hundred noble rangers
As ever trod the West,
We laid them by their comrades,
Sweet peace to be their rest.

Perhaps you have a mother,
Likewise a sister too,
And maybe so a sweetheart
To weep and mourn for you.

If this should be your condition,
And you are bound to roam,
I advise you from experience
You'd better stay at home.

From Southern Folk Ballads, McNeil
Collected from Robert Shiflett, Virginia, 1962
DT #363
Laws A8
Note: Probably a rewrite of a Civil War song.
RG