This might be a question for Dale Cox, Mr. Florida war expert--or Mrs. Pam G. Watts--but I think from time to time on the old Tennessee Ernie Ford “Songs of the Civil War” albums that I used to play while everybody else was being transfigured by the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean. In TEF's “Civil War Songs of the South,” who does this lyric refer to?:

“Jeff Davis was a gentleman, Jeff Davis was no fool,
Jeff Davis rode a dapple gray and Abe Lincoln rode a mule.
So lay 10 dollars down, or 20 if you choose,
For I can whup the Yankee that stole old Abner’s shoes.
…The Yankees came to Baldwin, they came upon the rear,
They thought they’d find old Abner, but old Abner was not there.”

So my question is, who’s Abner? Can’t seem to find this reference anywhere by googling.

By the way, I realize that Ernie Ford or someone along the way sanitized the lyric to NOT say: “Jeff Davis was a gentleman, Abe Lincoln was a fool….”

Guess some stuff was un-PC even back then. By the way, I haven't heard any of these songs for 40+ years, so I guess you could say what we got us here is a demonstration of the power of the media to form somewhat lasting impressions (along lines of Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should. Or as we used to say: Winston tastes bad like the last one I had.).

(That wasn't the point of my post, but the vile crud today's kids stuff in their minds won't have any impact on their psyches...nooooooooo.)