Lyrics Don't Tread on Me (Harlem Hellfighters) - 1914

Don't Tread on Me (Harlem Hellfighters)

My name is private Johnson, I’m from AEF
The 369th Infantry Regiment.
From Harlem to France, from ghetto to trench
And honestly, here’s not much difference
May 15th, an enemy patrol around twenty huns
Me and a box of grenades, I threw it all then took up my rifle, c’mon
191 days under fire, never retire
Men of Bronze go forward or die
Hold one’s ground that’s why they call us Hellfighters
God knows I give as good as I got
The fucking Labelle had a magazine clip of just three rounds and I fired it all
There was no time for reloading
I swung my rifle and brought it down with a thrown blow upon the enemy’s head
He went down crying and close-in fighting began
I stabbed one Jerry in the stomach, felled a lieutenant and took a pistol shot
in my arm before driving his knife between the ribs of a soldier who had
climbed on my back
I killed four boches and wounded maybe ten or maybe five more can’t count it
well
The only weapon left is my bolo knife
So I climbed up from the ground and charged, hacking away at the foes
There wasn’t anything so fine about it
Just fought for my life
A rabbit would have done that