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Battle Hymn Glory Glory

The Battle Hymn of the Republic

Language: English

Born: 1861-62; Virginia

Field & Discipline: Art; Poetry; Song

DESCRIPTION: In 1861, [written by] Julia Ward Howe* and her husband, the reformer and

teacher of the blind Samuel Gridley Howe, were working voluntarily for the United States' government's Sanitary Commission, and had been called to Washington D.C. to help distribute supplies to Massachusetts regiments there. During their stay in Washington, the Howe’s were invited by President Lincoln to attend a review of troops at a Union Army camp across the Potomac River, during which the Union soldiers were suddenly called into action.

Afterwards, they returned slowly along the road to the city, alongside hundreds of troops who while marching to their cantonments were singing a variety of army songs, including "John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the ground; His soul is marching on."

This song, commemorating the disastrous Harper's Ferry raid (1859) on the Federal arsenal by the maverick abolitionist [inspired by] John Brown* and his supporters, was particularly popular with Union men, and a member of the Howes' party, the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, who knew of Julia Ward Howe's published poems, urged her to write a new song for the war effort to replace "John Brown's Body."

Keen to be of service to the Republican cause, she set her mind to the problem and awoke early the next morning with the entire poem in her head.  In fear of forgetting the lines, she scribbled them down on a piece of paper in the dark before going back to sleep. The result was a poem, published first in February 1862 in the journal “Atlantic Monthly,” and called "Battle Hymn of the Republic,” for which she was paid $5 by the editor. The poem was quickly put to the tune that had been used for "John Brown's Body" and became the best known Civil War marching song of the North.

The words of the Hymn:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

 He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are  stored;

 He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

           His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

 They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

 I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

           His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:

 "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;

 Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

           Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

 He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:

 Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

           Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

 With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:

 As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

           While God is marching on.

Once the Civil War ended in 1865, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" grew rapidly in popularity and by the late 19th century it had became part of the popular patriotic consciousness of the United States, ensuring Julia Ward Howe's continuing fame.

Assessment: Song composed by abolitionist and feminist Julia Ward Howe in support of the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Oneliner: Battle Hymn of the Republic

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Bibliography:

Wikipedia