"Battle Hymn of the Republic"

[David Lockmiller]

VOA
November 23, 2012
Julie Taboh

"The Battle Hymn of the Republic," originally written as a Civil War anthem, was President Abraham Lincoln’s favorite, according to historians.

The appeal of the hymn continues today. The original manuscript of the song's lyrics will be sold at auction in New York next month and is expected to fetch between $250,000 and $350,000.

In the early morning hours of Nov. 19, 1861, poet and anti-slavery activist Julia Ward Howe woke up from a powerful dream and quickly scribbled down some words.

Those verses, written during the early years of the Civil War at the Willard hotel in Washington, D.C., were inspired by a skirmish between Union and Confederate soldiers she'd witnessed just hours earlier.

The previous day, she and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, also met President Abraham Lincoln at the White House. In her memoir, published in 1899, Howe wrote of being struck by "the sad expression of Mr. Lincoln’s deep, blue eyes."

In the carriage on the way back to the hotel, which is located near the White House and only a few miles from the Confederate advance posts, she and a few members of her party started singing snatches of popular army songs, including the rousing folk tune, "John Brown’s Body," about the famed abolitionist John Brown.

Her friend, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, suggested she write new words to the song, which had become popular in the Union Army during the Civil War.

And Howe did just that.

"I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly," wrote Howe. "I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind. Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to myself, ‘I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep again and forget them.’"

Julia Ward Howe penned "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" in November 1861.

Howe’s visions of "Lincoln and battles and marching troops" resulted in "this rather remarkable series of verses," says Chris Coover, senior specialist in American historical documents at Christie's auction house in New York.

With the verses set to the tune of "John Brown’s Body," it quickly became a resounding success with the Union soldiers, and even President Lincoln himself.

"Lincoln loved this piece and asked for it to be performed on many occasions," Coover says.

Since the Civil War, the hymn has become an iconic anthem, part of the traditional choir repertoire, and a standard at major political events.

Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted parts of the hymn in several of his speeches, including his rousing 1968 address in Memphis, Tennessee, delivered the night before his assassination. King’s last spoken words at a public event were taken from the hymn's first verse.

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

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CBN
Kenneth W. Osbeck

At one time it was sung as a solo at a large rally attended by President Abraham Lincoln. After the audience had responded with loud applause, the President, with tears in his eyes, cried out, "Sing it again!" It was sung again.

The words to the song,"The Battle Hymn of the Republic"

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 watchfires 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.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
O 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.

Chorus: Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

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The Battle Hymn of John Brown
New York Times BY R. BLAKESLEE GILPIN NOVEMBER 25, 2011

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.

On Nov. 17, 1861, Julia Ward Howe traveled with her husband Samuel, then director of the Army’s Sanitary Commission, to review a Union camp outside of Washington. Howe recalled the troops singing “the army songs so popular at the time,” noting especially their enthusiasm for the lyrics, “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the ground; His soul is marching on.” One of Howe’s companions, the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, made a suggestion: “Mrs. Howe, why do you not write some good words for that stirring tune?”

Howe never explained the reasons why Brown, the radical abolitionist, was deemed an unsatisfactory subject, but she woke up “in the gray of the [following] morning” with new lyrics in her head. “I sprang out of bed,” she recalled, “and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen [and] I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.”

Howe’s “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” written in the early morning of Nov. 18, 1861, and eventually published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862, became one of the most memorable patriotic songs in American history. When Abraham Lincoln first heard it, he reportedly cried, then requested an encore.