Written, Recorded and Performed by Jeff Stachyra with Bob Damiano / Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar and Bobby Twining and Memory Moog and Roland JD800
Details start to emerge in the aftermath.
The Sultana
Henry Ames and Lady Gay didn’t make the cut that fateful day
Now Pauline Carroll should have got the word docked right there in old Vicksburg
Mason and Speed they was eyeing the neighbor
While they thought about the end of the booty on the table
Could this be the end of the Merchant’s & People’s Line
There wasn’t enough to go around this time
Enlisted get you five, an officer will bring you ten
I thank you Uncle Sam
Everybody knew that Hatch was a prick he’d been busted too may times
His brother had to bail him out by going to Grant and Lincoln – At least once
A brigadier general who was greedy had a weasel in Hatch
Who had a weasel in Captain Speed.
They were going to make sure they made a lot of money taking one last trip
Going up north the side wheel rocking
They was hoping that they had a little luck left in them
But the night would prove they had nothing in the tank
Three train loads of prisoners shoehorned on board
One hundred tourists and 85 more made up the crew on that fateful night
Very few would make it to see the daylight
It was 2 a.m. on a chilly late April morning
When a blast lit up the north sky
A sea of bodies living hell it was hard to tell
What was floating by you grab a hold of something
Ride a dead horse grab a hog steal a neighbor get a log – get a log
Well the ship it had a mascot, the mascot an alligator
Alligator crated underneath the bulkhead
It met its early demise getting stabbed by a bayonet
His crate it was a raft his carcass left for dead
You heard the bloody screaming from the scalding all the crying
There was men and women children horses mules and all the crying
Burning on the icy muddy water of the Mississippi
April 27, 1865
The soldiers and the spirits they all meet again in heaven
And we never shall forget their memory it shall survive
