Shadows on the Mississippi

Shadows on the Mississippi
© 2025 Mitchell Scott — All rights reserved.

Lyrics

April ninth in Virginia, under low and silver skies,
In the quiet morning shadows of 1865.
The cannons had gone silent, yet the land still shook with pain,
And the people prayed that spring would wash it clean again.

And the soldiers who’d survived it, from the prisons and the fray,
Started dreaming of their doorsteps and the ones who’d paved the way.
They spoke of farms and families, of a life seemed so far gone,
As they gathered by the river for the journey home where they belonged.
There she waited on the water, just a worn and weary frame,
With a boiler patched in haste and decks that groaned beneath the strain.
But the orders pressed her forward, and the waiting lines were long,
So they loaded her with weary souls still dreaming of the road they’d walked so long.

The Sultana rode the river, side wheels turning ’round,
Soldiers now her payload on board that weighed her down.
She pulled away at twilight as the river swelled with rain,
And the decks were lined with soldiers feeling life come back again.
The lanterns swayed in rhythm as her paddles churned the sound,
While the swollen Mississippi bore her steady northward bound.
The night lay soft around them as the river whispered low,
And stories of their loved ones were regaled by lantern glow.
Some leaned against the railings, others slept upon the ground,
While the Sultana slipped through shadows with a peace she’d never found.
But the boilers strained in silence as the midnight hours wore thin,
And a few uneasy faces marked the trouble deep within.
Yet the river kept on rising, her paddles still pushing ’round,
And the weight of weary soldiers pressed her deeper and deeper down.
Then a thunder split the silence as a fireball lit the night,
And the decks heaved up beneath them in a blinding, burning light.
The Sultana shook and shuddered as her bow heaved to and fro,
As their fates fell to the river’s hands, in a tangle down below

In the freezing, churning waters, voices called out in the night,
As the desperate reached for something and swam with all their might.
Some held tight to wounded brothers, swearing they’d not let go,
While the river swept them onward through the wreckage down below.

The Sultana rode the river with two thousand weary souls,
But she left them to the water, just too many for her to hold.

From the bluffs above in Memphis came the calls of those who’d seen,
And the rescue boats were mustered as the dawn broke cold and lean.
They pulled men from the shadows where the shattered timbers lay,
The river kept on rolling with the ruins of that day.

For the ones who never made it, let their names be spoken still,
From the cabins of Kentucky to the farms of Shiloh Hill.
They had lived to see the war end, only for fate to turn their page,
The Mississippi holds their memory as another years', left to fade.

The Sultana rode the river with two thousand weary souls,
But she left them to the water when her destiny unrolled.
The Mississippi keeps their memory as the seasons turn the page,
Carrying home the whispered names that time cannot erase.