There stood Burnside with his army in the soft December mud,
With the Rappahannock rolling like a war-dividing flood.
While the batteries of Robert Lee that crowned the farther ridge,
Dealing death, forbade the building of the needed pontoon bridge!
For Burnside came for battle
and they knew it by the rattle of the drum!

When Burnside called for volunteers to make the other bank,
The Rappahannock Drummer Boy was the first to leave the rank;
And while a cheer for Hendershot went up from every throat,
There followed thirty others, just enough to man the boat.
He said, "I'll stem the battle,"
and they heard it in the the rattle of his drum!

"Clear out, youngster!" said the Captain,
"Back to camp I bid you to go!"
And although he answered "Yes Sir!" still he kept on thinking "No!"
He was bound to cross the river so be clung behind the boat,
With his little legs a-kicking half swimming, half a float.
He was eager for the battle
and to lead them with the rattle of his drum!

Lee's batteries ceased firing from the heights beyond the town
Or Burnside, with his cannon, would have knocked the village down.
When the little boat had landed through that special storm of lead,
Nearly all the men were wounded, more than half of them were dead;
And a shell from out of battle had busted up the rattle of the drum!

With a dying soldier's rifle soon he clambered up the bank,
Looking every inch a hero, 'though a very little Yank;
He rushed into a building just as if he'd take the town,
But finding it deserted, thought it best to burn it down,
Adding to the smoke of battle and to make up for the rattle of his drum!

Found a Rebel in the garden, kneeling down behind the gate,
With his gun poked through a knothole for some poor unfortunate;
When he found he was not praying, he hit upon a plan
Of his capture--and he shouted, "Now surrender, Mr. Man!"
And in his boyish treble he bade the frightened Rebel drop his gun!

Though the boy looked very little, the gun looked very big
To the Reb, whose hair kept rising as the bristles on a pit;
And he marched before the youngster who could hardly raise his gun,
And took him o'er the pontoon shouting "Prisoner Number One!"
The youngster thinking he had captured Genereal Lee with his gun!

Three cheers went up along the line, as fast the story ran,
For Robert Henry Hendershot, the boy who took the man!
And straight to General Burnside he took the man in gray.
The Chieftain hailed him proudly as the Hero of the Day!
"You've fired the men for battle
much more than by the rattle of your drum!"

In the battle that succeeded he was carried from the fray,
Doubly wounded; long unconscious in the hosptal he lay.
Horace Greeley heard the story and with those in his employ
Gave a silver drum to honor Rappannock's drummer boy!
And the people gazed in wonder to hear the story and thunder
in his drum!

"Castle Thunder," "Libby Prison," twice a captive in the war!
In the list of youthful heroes he has no competitor.
Grant and Lincoln gave him honor, and the people of the day
Gave him one wreath for valor and another for his play!
He imitates the battle and the locomotive rattle on his drum!

As a hero and a drummer, he's the marvel of the age;
Drummer boy of Rappahannock, write it on historic page!
And let every youth remember, who the story may relate,
If in life he prove a hero, he'll be honored by the great;
And his deeds in life's great battle shall for excel the rattle of a drum!