Corb Lund - I Wanna Be In The Cavalry : Reprise lyrics

I wanna be in the cavalry if they send me off to war I wanna good steed under me like my forefathers before Courageous at first we took their worst, our positions we held stout We clung to belief and we hung on the speech from our trusted leaders' mouths Overwhelming odds and a hopeless cause and our cities overrun There were them that said we was badly led and God were we outgunned I lost count of the worthy mounts that from under me were cut My favourite mare with her head in the air took the cannons in her gut In the first two weeks on that bloody creek my brother lost his arm Was only sixty days till all we prayed was get us home unharmed O for the day that we signed our names and the well that we were wished The men's congrats and the pats on the backs and the ladies that we kissed The band that played and the grande parade and the patriotic shouts All faded fast, didn't even last till the uniforms wore out And there were none to replace nor to help us face the winters cold and bleak That chilled to the bone the pneumonia prone and froze our bootless feet Then the typhoid hit with its fevered fits, TB and dysentery That proved in the end to have killed more men than the vilest enemy We were finally forced to feed on horse and carcass we could scrounge When the wagons stopped and we'd burnt their crops to charred and barren ground With morale in doubt and our pride run out no honour did I see All I seen were a thousand dreams piled dead in front of me I wanna be in the cavalry if the send me off to war I wanna be in the cavalry but I won't ride home no more