We are climbin Jacob's Ladder

We are climbin Jacob's Ladder

1. We are climbin Jacob's Ladder {ladder}

We are climbin Jacob's Ladder {ladder}

We are climbin Jacob's Ladder {ladder}

Soldier of the cross (or King)

2. Every round goes higher higher {higher}

Every round goes higher higher {higher}

Every round goes higher higher {higher}

Soldier of the cross

3. Do you think I'll make ah soldier {soldier}

Do you think I'll make ah soldier {soldier}

Do you think I'll make ah soldier {soldier}

Soldier of the cross

4. If you love him why not serve him {serve him}

If you love him why not serve him {serve him}

If you love him why not serve him {serve him}

Soldier of the cross

5. Repeat verse one

Here’s another illustration of our great grandparents genius for giving double meanings in the spiritual songs they sung. We might look at them as "fun" songs to sing around the campfire. But do we climb a 'ladder' to get to Heaven?

The old Negro spiritual would proclaim, "We are climbing Jacob's ladder ladder...soldiers of the cross...ev'ry rung goes higher higher … Do you think I'll make ah soldier?”

T.G. Steward wrote in Buffalo Soldiers: The Colored Regulars in the United States Army: ”I first heard it sung in the Saint James Methodist Church, Charleston, South Carolina, immediately after the close of the (Civil) war. It was sung by a vast congregation to a gentle, swinging air, with nothing of the martial about it, and was accompanied by a swaying of the body to the time of the music. As the rich chorus of matchless voices poured out in perfect time and tune, “Rise, shine, and give God the glory,” the thoughts of earthly freedom, of freedom from sin, and finally of freedom from the toils, cares and sorrows of earth to be baptized into the joys of heaven, all seemed to blend into the many-colored but harmonious strain.

He said later in the chapter:” The Negro soldier, hero of five hundred battlefields, with medals and honors resting upon his breast, with the endorsement of the highest military authority of the nation, with Port Hudson, El Caney and San Juan behind him, is still expected by too many to stand and await the verdict of thought, from persons who never did “think” he would make a soldier, and who never will think so. As well expect the excited animal of the ring to think in the presence of the red rag of the toreador as to expect them to think on the subject of the Negro soldier. They can curse, and rant, when they see the stalwart Negro in uniform, but it is too much to ask them to think. To them, the Negro can be a fiend, a brute, but never a soldier”.

Frederick Douglass, himself an escaped slave, summed the matter up succinctly:" Colored men were good enough to fight under Washington. They are not good enough to fight under McClellan. They were good enough to fight under Andrew Jackson. They are not good enough to fight under Gen. Halleck. They were good enough to help win American Independence but they are not good enough to help preserve that independence against treason and rebellion. They were good enough to defend New Orleans but not good enough to defend our poor beleaguered Capital.

Historian Benjamin P. Thomas wrote: "Although Lincoln announced the proposed use of colored troops in the Emancipation Proclamation, he had not come easily to that decision. The act of July 17, 1862, gave him complete discretion in the employment of Negroes for any purpose whatsoever, but he had shrunk from using black men to kill white men. To deprive the South of the services of her slaves was a legitimate and necessary war measure. To use colored men as teamsters and laborers in the Union army would release white men for combat. But to put weapons in the hands of black men, some of whom might become frenzied with the flush of new-found freedom, was a matter of most serious consequence."

So our forbearers sang “do you think I’ll make a soldier? Soldiers of the cross.