Black Horsemen

[minieball]

I stumbled on these lyrics while perusing the LoC. It's set to "Dixie'

[minieball]

Here's another set to Dixie also published in Winchester, VA

[Johnny Lloyd]

I wonder what "Black Horsemen refers" to... black confederates??? Probably not. -Johnny

[huntdaw]

Wasn't the 1st VA Cavalry called the 'Black Horse Cavalry'?

The chorus sure doesn't seem to fit with the meter of Dixie's chorus.

Second song works much better.

[Danny]

I wonder what "Black Horsemen refers" to... -Johnny

John -

From “Johnny Reb and Billy Yank” – Alexander Hunter (Pg. 668):
“Bob Martin, by all laws, should have been the Captain of the Black Horse, and every trooper, had he been that privileged, would have voted him that honor. That such a born soldier should have gone through the war in the ranks is but one of the numberless cases of the incompetency of the Confederate Government…
The father, old Mr. John Martin…was a large landed proprietor, the possessor of two spacious farms lying near Warrenton Junction.
At the outbreak of the war he was a man of means and owed no man a dollar. When the tide of conflict surged to his doors he threw them wide open and gave everything he had to the soldiers and held absolutely nothing back. His house was the rendezvous for all the Black Horsemen in the vicinity…

And from the diary of Mary Henry, Eyewitness to the Civil War in the City of Washington, First Battle of Manassas, July 1861 (Smithsonian Collection):

“(July) 22…From all In my humble opinion I have been able to learn during the day however it seems I should think this battery have been yielded xx in order to entrap the federal army in the {drawing} & then it was evidently the plan of the day cutting off their retreat with an attack of cavalry in the rear. while an attack of cavelry in the rear out off prevented a retreat. The plan did not quite succeed however the cavelry 'The Black Horsemen', were repulsed by Ellsworth's Zouaves.”

- Dan Wykes
(I added the underlines)