The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Bob Dylan & The Band

Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train

'Til Stoneman's cavalry came and it tore up the tracks again

In the winter of '65, we were hungry, just barely alive

By May tenth, Richmond had fell, it's a time I remember, oh so well



The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and all the bells were ringing

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and all the people were singin'

They went



Back with my wife in Tennessee, when one day she called to me

"Say Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee!"

Now I don't mind choppin' wood, and I don't care if my money's no good

Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest

But they should never have taken the very best



The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and all the bells were ringing

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and all the people were singin'

They went



Like my father before me, I will work the land

And like my brother up above me, who took a rebel stand

He was just eighteen, proud and brave, but a Yankee laid him in his grave

I swear by the mud below my feet, you can't raise a Caine back up when he's in defeat



The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, when all the bells were ringing

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and you could hear 'm all singin'

They went