"Write a Letter to My Mother"
(20 Aug 1864, #26656; 27 Oct 1864)
Song [and Chorus]
Words by E. Bowers. 
Music by P.B. Isaacs.
By the same Author and Companion to 
"Brother's Fainting at the Door." [1863]

New York: P. B. Isaacs, 1274 Broadway
Engraver: T. Birch & Son, N. Y.
New York: S.T. Gordon, 538 Broadway
Henry Beyes, Stereotyper, 19 Chatham St., N.Y.
[Sources: 200001458@LoC/IHAC-CWM;
131/161@Levy]

An Officer captured at the Battle of Bull Run relates the following
incident.  After our capture, I observed a Federal prisoner tenderly
cared for by a Rebel Soldier, I gleaned from their conversation, that
they were brothers: The brave boy, while battling for the Union, receiv-
ed his death wound from his own brother, at that time a private in the 
rebel ranks; never shall I forget the look of utter despair depicted upon
that rebels face, the dying boy, with a smile of holy resignation, clasp
his brother's hand, spoke of their Father, who was fighting of the 
dear old Flag, of Mother, of Home, of childhood, then requesting his
brother to "write a letter to Mother" and imploring him never to devulge
the cecret of his death. The young Hero yielded up his life.

1. Raise me in your arms my brother. 
Let me see the glorious sun. 
I am weary, faint and dying, 
How is the battle, loat or won; 
I remember you my brother, 
Sent to me that fatal dart, 
Brother fighting against brother, 
’Tis well ’tis well that thus we part, 
Brother fighting against brother, 
’Tis well, ’tis well that thus we part.

CHORUS [sung after each verse]
Write a letter to my mother, 
Send it when her boy is dead; 
That he perish’d by his brother. 
Not a word of that he said.

2. Father’s fighting for the Union, 
And you may meet him on the field. 
Could you raise your arm to smite him, 
Oh, would you bid that Father yield; 
He who loved us in our childhood, 
Taught the infant pray’rs we said, 
Brother take from me a warning, 
I’ll soon be number’d with the dead, 
Brother take from me a warning, 
I’ll soon be number’d with the dead.

3. Do you ever think of mother, 
In our home within the glen 
Watching, praying for her children, 
Oh, would you see that home again; 
Brother I am surely dying, 
Keep the secret for ’tis one, 
That would kill our angel mother, 
If she but knew what you have done, 
That would kill our angel mother, 
If she but knew what you have done.