MY ARMY CROSS OVER. "

Thomas Higginson gave the words to "My Army Cross Over" as follows in Army Life in a Black Regiment (emphasis added):

My army cross over,
My army cross over,
O, Pharaoh's army drowndedl [sic]
My army cross over. "

We'll cross de mighty river,
My army cross over;
We'll cross de river Jordan,
My army cross over;
We'll cross de danger water,
My army cross over;
We'll cross de mighty Myo,
My army cross over. _(Thrice.)_
O, Pharaoh's army drowndedl
My army cross over."

He remarked that "I could get no explanation of the 'mighty Myo,' except that one of the old men thought it meant the river of death. Perhaps it is an African word. In the Cameroon dialect, "Mawa" signifies 'to die.'" While the translation is unlikely (but not impossible) because few slaves came from the Cameroon region, it being the river of death would fit Kongolese beliefs about the line between the living and the ancestors being a body of water or a river. See Wyatt MacGaffey, Religion and Society in Central Africa: The BaKongo of Lower Zaire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).