This popular Civil War era song was first published in 1863 by by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments, and, in the years after the war, it served as the unofficial anthem of African American veterans. At Portsmouth, Ohio's celebration of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in April 1870, William E. Ross, a black veteran, led the crowd in singing its lyrics. Written in five stanzas, and sung to the chorus: "Give us the flag, all free without one slave, And we will defend it as our fathers did so brave, Onward! boys, Onward! Its the year of Jubilee, God bless America, the land of Liberty." Another stanza states: "Jeff Davis says he'll hang us, If we dare meet him in arms, Its a very big thing, But we are not alarmed; He has first got to catch us, Before his way is clear, For there is note a faint heart in the Colored Volunteer."