"We Are Coming, Father Abra'am", is a poem written by James S. Gibbons, set to music by eight different composers, including Stephen Foster.
If you look across the hilltops that meet the northern sky, Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry; And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil aside, And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride; And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour, We are coming, father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!
If you look up all our valleys where the growing harvests shine, You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into line; And children from their mother's knees are pulling at the weeds, And learning how to reap and sow against their country's needs; And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door, We are coming, Father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!
You have called us, and we're coming by Richmond's bloody tide, To lay us down for freedom's sake, our brothers' bones beside; Or from foul treason's savage grip, to wrench the murderous blade; And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade.
[3] One verse ran: We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more, We leave our homes and firesides with bleeding hearts and sore, Since poverty has been our crime, we bow to thy decree, We are the poor who have no wealth to purchase liberty.