When Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederacy   Jefferson Davis was upset about it   He said, "How dare that man resent an order   Form the President of the Confederate States of America"      Then somebody told him that   General Lee had made the decision himself   In order to save lives because he felt that the battle comin' up   Would cost about twenty thousand lives on both sides      And he said two hundred forty thousand dead already is enough   So this song is not about the north or the south   But about the bloody brother war   Brother against brother, father against son, the war that nobody won      And for all those lives that were saved   I gotta say God bless Robert E. Lee   Well, the mansion where the General used to live is burning down   Cotton fields are blue with Sherman's troops      I overheard a Yankee say yesterday Nashville fell   So I'm on my way to join the fight General Lee might need my help   But look away, look away, Dixie, I don't want them to see   What they're doing to my Dixie, God bless Robert E. Lee      Sherman's troops burned Atlanta and the flames lit up the sky   And those of us who survived it are watchin' my Dixie die   But today at Appomattox General Lee sat down   And surrendered to the Yankees and Ulysses S Grant      So look away, look away Dixie   I won't ever stop loving you, my Dixie, till they put me in the ground   And the last words they probably   Hear from me are God bless Robert E. Lee