"Jeff's last Proclamation" (1865)
Words & Music by UNION.

Burlington, Vt.: H. L. STORY.
H. Tolman & Co, Boston.
Reed's Temple of Music, Chicago.
W. A. Pond & Co. N. York.
Engd. by H. F. Greene, Boston
[Source: scsm0186@Duke]

1. A last proclamation I’m called on to make
To my friends of the Southern Confederacy
I’ve found the last ditch and oh dear how I quake
To think it should be up that sour apple tree.

CHORUS [sung after each VERSE]
That sour apple tree,
That sour apple tree,
The yankees have got me and soon I shall be
In petticoats hung to that sour apple tree.

2. I thought when I started the Dixie concern
That Sanders and Beauregard, Johnson and Lee,
The whole yankee nation would pilage and burn
But they’ve only sent me up that sour apple tree.

3. I thought that friend Booth sure would help me away
By murdering President Lincoln for me
But I find that it only hastened the day
That will see me hang high on that sour apple tree.

4. There’s “no cause for despondency,” no not a bit
No more that there was in the year sixty three.
And I’m bound to stick to it till this world I quit
By means of a rope and that sour apple tree.

5. And to think what a granny I made of myself
When I tried to go somewhere just over the sea
To put my wives clothes on and sneak off by stealth—
My boots led me straight to that sour apple tree.