Go Saddle Up My Milk-White Steed- McAtee (WV) 1918 JOAFL
[From Old Songs from Clarksburg, W. Va., 1918 by Anna Davis Richardson; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 32, No. 126 (Oct. - Dec., 1919), pp. 497-504. Her notes follow.
This version certainly could date back quite a few years before 1918, it's dated 1917 in Cox' Folk-Songs from the South. I've kept Cox's version separate (same informant- same text) because of the detailed notes.
R. Matteson 2013]
My other old minstrel, Mrs. McAtee, popularly known as "Old Nance," is the opposite in every way of Mrs. Fogg. She is tall, and thin and gaunt, and has led a hard life, - a life in which no one would suppose there had ever been or was now any song. But you never can tell, and her small deep-set blear eyes twinkle as merrily as pretty little Mrs. Fogg's over the humorous parts of her song. She, too, was discovered by accident. She had come up one day to have a letter written to "the govermint" to get him to "redimpt Bobby," her son who had been drafted. She said she had sent his reprieve to the "Gov'nor," but had "never heerd nuthin' frum it," so she had determined to appeal to the " govermint;" and if one wouldn't let him out, the other might, for she "heerd there is two of 'em." The letters and the answers, and the frequent letters to Bobby in camp, necessitated many trips, and much conversation in which reminiscences of the past, of childhood days, gave me the clew, and started questions. When she knew that Mrs. Fogg had given me twenty-two "songballets," she determined to be even with her, and strained every bit of memory to recall long-forgotten songs. By counting fragments the twenty-four were at last made up.
"You got to be partic'lar," she would whisper to her daughter, who usually came up with her, "she makes it come out printin'!" If this were a biographical sketch, it could come out "printin"' indefinitely; but that is another story, and I have not seen her now since the day she came up to tell me that Bobby was about to be "trespassed" into another company.
Every now and then, as she repeated the words of her songs for me, she would stop, and ask anxiously, "It ain't no harm sayin' 'em, is it? It's jus' sport, ain't it?" She went on to explain: "My mother she wouldn't never sing 'em, she sung good pieces. Her an' Pappy was well religious old people, they belonged to meetin', an' wuz baptized in the river. Pappy had this here - what you call fam'ly prayers, yes ma'am, prayed 'fore he went to work in the mornin', and 'fore he went to bed at night. He was full-blooded Irish, named McDonald. They brung him over when he was six weeks old, an' settled down in Albemarle County, Virginia. No, ma'am! I never learned these ballets from them; I heerd the other kids a-singin' 'em, an' the people that lived round there. Some of 'em I heerd the soldiers singin' when the war wuz goin on down there, pore fellers! some of 'em'd a had to stand in the same place twict to cast a shadder; but they was plucky, a-singin' an' pickin' their banjos an' fiddles."
Mrs. McAtee's collection included "Lady Margaret and Sweet William," "Lord Leven," "Fair Ellender," "Little Johnnie Green," "William Taylor and His Own True Lovyer," "Billy Boy," "Davy Crockett," "A Pretty Fair Maid in a Garden," "I was brought up in Sheerfield," "Go saddle up my Milk-White Steed," "My Name it is Bill Staffato," "When I rode the Madison Square," "The Cruel Father," "McAtee's Confession," "The Raising of Lazareth," and two or three songs of the Civil War, - "The Victory won at Richmond," "The Yankees' Retreat," etc.
5. GO SADDLE UP MY MILK-WHITE STEED.
(Given by Mrs. Nancy McAtee.)
Go saddle up my milk-white steed,
Go saddle it full gayly,
Until I write to the earthen sires (!)
To plead for the life of Georgie.
She rid till she come to the earthen sires' office
So early in the morning;
She tumbled down on her bended knees,
Saying, "Spare me the life of Georgie!"
There were an old man stepped up to her,
He looked as if he was pleasing;
"O pretty miss! if it lays in my power,
I'll spare you the life of Georgie."
The judge looked over his left shoulder,
He looked as if he was angry;
Says, " Now, pretty miss, you've come too late,
For Georgie he's condemned already!"
"Did Georgie ever trample on the king's highway,
Or did he murder any?"
"He stole sixteen of the milk-white steeds,
And conveyed them away to the army."
Georgie he was hung in a white silk robe,
Such robes there was not many,
Because he was of that royal blood,
And was loved by a virtuous lady.