The connections between President Lincoln and Julia Ward Howe's song "Battle Hymn of the Republic" run deep: The story begins with John Brown, born in Kansas, 1800. He and his family were slave abolitionists who raided the town of Harper's Ferry, West Virginia in 1859. Storming through that very surprised community, the Browns ambushed prominent citizens, took them as hostages and wrested control of the town's arsenal. The family's ill-fated intention was to liberate some of the local slaves and build an army with them to free the rest of the slaves throughout the south.
Mr. Brown's rather disorganized "army" was captured on October 18th, 1859. John Brown was tried, convicted and executed by hanging. The event, which caught the attention of the entire nation, sparked the American civil war that raged from 1861 to 1865. Former slave and abolitionist speaker Frederick Douglass met John Brown in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1848 and wrote of him in The North Star in the following words: ..."[He] though a white gentleman, is in sympathy a black man, and is as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery."
Julia Ward Howe desperately wanted to be useful and do her part in the war effort. Other women had husbands and sons fighting in the army. They embraced the cause and gathered their forces to serve in hospitals or wherever they were needed. Mrs. Howe's own husband was too old for duty and their children too young and dependent.
Because of Mrs. Howe and her husband's voluntary involvement in the "Sanitary Commission" during the Civil War, they were invited to the White House by President Lincoln. While in Washington, Julia Howe one day heard soldiers singing "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave". "John Brown's Body" was a tune that arose among the camp meeting song tradition during the Civil War. She was immediately encouraged by a friend sitting beside her to write perhaps "more inspirational" words to this camp meeting tune. Here is one version of the original song "John Brown's Body":
Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on.
John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave,
And Kansas knows his valor when he fought her rights to save;
Now, tho the grass grows green above his grave,
His soul is marching on.
He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,
And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru;
They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on.
John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,
Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,
And soon thruout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,
For his soul is marching on.
The conflict that he heralded he looks from heaven to view,
On the army of the Union with its flag red, white and blue.
And heaven shall ring with anthems o’er the deed they mean to do,
For his soul is marching on.
Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,
The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,
For the dawn of old John Brown has brightened into day,
And his soul is marching on
As she lay in her bed, one evening in 1862, the verses swarmed the mind of Julia Ward Howe. She leaped out of bed and excitedly scribbled them on paper in the dark since she didn't wish to wake the baby by lighting her lamp. When Mrs. Howe completed her verses, she returned to bed, telling herself that she quite liked this song better than almost anything else she had ever penned.
Later, at a big war rally attended by President Abraham Lincoln, a singer peformed Julia Ward Howe's "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" and the audience went crazy with applause. With tears of emotion glistening in his eyes, the President shouted loudly "play it again!".
Battle Hymn of the Republic, lyrics
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. (Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
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.
(Chorus)
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my condemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."
(Chorus)
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.
(Chorus)
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.
(Chorus)
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.
(Chorus)
Note: Anne Milligan recorded the vocals for the recording of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" you are hearing on this webpage to the accompaniment of a rendition of the song which can be found on an album entitled "101 Strings Orchestra: 20 Spirit of America". 2004. Madacy Special Products. The song is presented here as a demonstration only and is not for sale. To purchase music by Anne Milligan or to schedule Anne Milligan to sing at your event, click the following link: Anne Milligan Music
