Come hear this sad story and all that was said
In the final few words from an old woman’s bed
About poor Laura Foster and the fate that she met
How  her ghost in the mountains is still lingering yet

19 at the end of the great Civil War
Anne Melton had met a young man she adored
A poor rebel soldier with fiddle and bow
Tom Dooley was welcomed wherever he’d go

But young Laura Foster had eyes for him too
Both she and Tom Dooley swore they would be true
They planned to elope and then soon they would wed
But this tale has a quite different ending instead

The lovers would meet in the hill beyond town
It was over a month before Laura was found
Stabbed through the heart with a big butcher knife
Anne said Tom was the killer that night

They hunted Tom down, he was sentenced to die
Folks lined the streets as he made his last ride
On his casket he rode as they bore him along
And played on his fiddle a sad, haunting song

He stood on the gallows, the rope round his neck
The hand he held up was not trembling yet
(He said) Ya’ll think I’m guilty and soon I’ll be dead
But I ne’r harmed a hair on that poor young girl’s head

 Anne now  is old, she’s the only one left
And she whispers these words with the last of her breath
“Tom was a victim.  Though it’s been a long time,
They’d not stretch a neck that’s as pretty as mine.”