The Band - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

The Band - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down From the 1978 film ‘The Last Waltz’

Confederate use of rail during the Siege of Petersburg.

The lyrics tell of the last days of the American Civil War and the suffering of the South. Dixie is a nickname for the Southern Confederate states. Confederate soldier Virgil Caine “served on the Danville train” (the Richmond and Danville Railroad, a main supply line into the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia from Danville, Virginia, and by connection, the rest of the South). Union cavalry regularly tore up Confederate rail lines to prevent the movement of men and material to the front where Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was besieged at Siege of Petersburg. As part of the offensive campaign, Union Army General George Stoneman‘s forces “tore up the track again”.

The song’s lyric refers to conditions in the Southern states in the winter of early 1865 (“We were hungry / Just barely alive”); the Confederacy is starving and on the verge of defeat. Reference is made to the date May 10, 1865, by which time the Confederate capital of Richmond had long since fallen (in April); May 10 marked the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the definitive end of the Confederacy.

From the 1978 film ‘The Last Waltz’

Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train,
Til Stoneman’s cavalry came and 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, when all the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and all the people were singin’. They went,
Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na,
Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na,
Na, Na, Na,

Back with my wife in Tennessee, When one day she called to me,
Said “Virgil, quick, come and see, there goes the Robert E. Lee!”
Now I don’t mind choppin’ wood, and I don’t care if the 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, when all the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and all the people were singin’. They went,
Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na,
Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na,
Na, Na, Na,

Like my father before me, I will work the land,
And like my brother above me, who took a rebel stand.
He was just eighteen, proud and brave, But a Yankee laid him in his grave,
And 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 all the people were singin’. They went,
Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na,
Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na,
Na, Na, Na,