The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
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 the tenth, Richmond had fell, it's a time I remember oh so well
The night they drove Old Dixie down and the bells were ringing
The night they drove Old Dixie down and the people were singin', they went
La-la-la la-la-la, la-la-la la-la-la, la-la-la-la
Back with my wife in Tennessee, when one day she called to me
"Virgil, quick, come see, there goes 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 and 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
Like my father before me, I will work the land
And like my brother before 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 and 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
The night they drove old Dixie down and all the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down and the people were singin', they went
Na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na-na
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 the tenth, Richmond had fell, it's a time I remember oh so well
The night they drove Old Dixie down and the bells were ringing
The night they drove Old Dixie down and the people were singin', they went
La-la-la la-la-la, la-la-la la-la-la, la-la-la-la
Back with my wife in Tennessee, when one day she called to me
"Virgil, quick, come see, there goes 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 and 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
Like my father before me, I will work the land
And like my brother before 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 and 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
The night they drove old Dixie down and all the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down and the people were singin', they went
Na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na-na
- Robbie Robertson http://theband.hiof.no/articles/dixie_viney.html
CHAPTER 1: A SOUTHERN BOY COMES TO CHICAGO
The sidewalk was cold and wet and the barrel of the gun was pressed against my head. The Red Squad agent http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n6_v43/ai_11559671
was digging through the box and flyers that lay beside me. Then I heard the gun cock.
"Do you think I have the guts to pull the trigger?", he taunted me.
I knew from my schooling in military school to keep my mouth shut. If I said yes he could say "Damn straight!" and then shoot me. If I said no, he could tell me I was wrong and blow my brains all over the concrete.
How did I get here?
I was a high school correspondent for THE GREAT SPECKLED BIRD http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/news/0052.html in Atlanta, which had a huge hippie scene for awhile. http://www.messyoptics.com/bird/APF_00.html
In Atlanta ROTC was mandatory for high school graduation, and I had led a sit-in at Grady High School to make it elective. When I realized that 1200 of the 1500 student body had filled the first floor hall and we couldn't sit anywhere I announced we would take our petitions to the Principal and then go back to homeroom. As we gathered together, the police entered the building in full riot gear. As we walked towards them I told the group to stand fast. I walked ahead with the petitions. That's when a policeman charged me, punching me in the face and I went down, out.
When I came to I was in the principal's office and the sounds of sirens and yelling were everywhere. Police cars had been turned over and were ablaze. Kids were fighting police in the halls and on the school grounds. No one knew what to do with me. I hadn't actually broken any law, our sit-in was before homeroom so I hadn't disrupted classes. I didn't live at home, had moved away at 12 1/2 and never went back. While police argued about what to do with me I looked out the window to see a police truck on fire.
I had a duplex house (that's a house split in half) with three floors and the rent for myself and two hippie friends was $90 a month. I didn't have to sell too many copies of the GREAT SPECKLED BIRD to get that much money The diggers http://www.diggers.org/top_entry.htm who were the 1950's hippies provided daily free meals, pot was $15 a Prince Albert can and had no stems or seeds, Boone's Farm wine was a buck a bottle, tax included.
I could be a hippie and not go home because it was cheap and Atlanta had a huge hippie base that actually outlasted the scenes all over the country.
Until crystal meth showed up.
I'm sure my parents thought I would be back home in days. They had no way of knowing that a support group of middle and upper class drop outs could provide a support system. Plus when I left, I lied about my age. Claiming to be 17. Somehow it worked.
Hippies congregated in poor areas in cities because no one in those days would rent to people of the opposite sex that weren't married. These areas were generally also protected by the police.
The poor areas weren't.
The white ghetto was known as Cabbage Town, from the smell of cabbage and corned beef the Irish would cook. You knew you were entering the black ghetto because the sidewalk and streets ended. The roads were dirt. I became political because of an incident that occured in Summerville.
A teen named Andre Moore had seen a mute friend of his being shaken by 2 police officers who were demanding he talk. Andre yelled at them that he couldn't talk, and the police started hitting the mute kid. Andre threw a rock at them yelling for them to stop, and the police ran after him.
He was shot to death in front of his mother, on the lawn of their house.
The judge in the case cleared the cops, on the condition they sign up for the military and go to Nam. In those days southern Democratic judges would often offer this deal to criminals.
When I heard the verdict, I cried. I don't know why. But it hit me hard. The next day I was at the Great Speckled Bird offering to write.
Whew. Even now remembering this brings tears to my eyes.
So I'm laying on the sidewalk in Chicago and this cop is reading to me from a flyer about our protest planned for the Federal Building. He rises, uncocks his gun and calmly walks away.
I begin to shake.
