When the Alabama's keel was laid,
Ch: ROLL, Alabama, ROLL,
They laid her keel in Birkenhead,
Ch: ROLL, Alabama, ROLL!
Oh, she was built at Birkenhead,
She was built in the yard of Jonathan Laird.
And down the Mersey she rolled away,
And Britain supplied her with men and guns.
And she sailed away in search of a prize.
And when she came to the port of Cherbourg,
It was there she met the little Kearsarge.
It was there she met the Ke-arsarge.
It was off Cherbourg harbor in April, '65,
That the Alabama went to a timely grave.
In eighteen hundred and sixty-one,
Ch: Roll, Alabama, roll!
The Alabama's keel was laid,
Ch: And Roll, Alabama, roll!
'Twas laid in the yard of Jonathan Laird,
At the town of Birkenhead.
At first she was called the "Two-Ninety-Two",
For the merchants of the city of Liverpool
Put up the money to build the ship,
In the hopes of driving the commerce from the sea.
Down the Mersey she sailed one day
To the port of Fayal in the Western Isles.
There she refitted with men and guns,
And sailed across the Western Sea
With orders to sink, burn and destroy
All ships belonging to the North.