[4Runner]

I never said Horton’s was the original version. Actually, I think his is vastly superior to the plunkity one you dug up. Horton’s is the one I know, because I grew up in the ‘50s and that was when his version was being played all over the country on the radio.

[Fiji Hill]

I like Jimmy Driftwood's version, despite some errata--Edward Pakenham was a general, not a colonel, and Minié balls had yet to be invented.

But I also like Johnny Horton's version--and everything else that he did. It even made the playlists of pop stations like KFI, which pretty much eschewed rock and Top 40 music. In August 1959, we heard it frequently on the radio in our 1958 Edsel Villager station wagon.

[Daveinyork]

In 1814 we took a little trip.

[Fiji Hill]

This tune, highly politically incorrect in 2024, rose to #54 on the pop charts but made the Top 10 on the country western charts.

Johnny Reb--Johnny Horton (1959)