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Civil Warrior: From ‘John Brown’s Body’ to ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’

By November 1861, seven months into the Civil War, the Union and the Confederacy were preparing for a prolonged conflict. Soldiers often sang songs to pass the monotony of life in the army. One such song, called “Say Brothers, Will You Meet Us,” was a popular Methodist hymn going back to the rural South in the early 1800s.

The 2nd Infantry Battalion of the Massachusetts militia, known as the “Tiger Battalion,” began to change the lyrics of “Say Brothers, Will You Meet Us” to refer to the abolitionist John Brown, who unsuccessfully tried to start a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. Brown was captured and executed the same year.

It so happened that this battalion also had a soldier named John Brown. Other soldiers teased him for sharing the same name as the more famous John Brown. The soldiers said things such as, “That’s not John Brown; John Brown is dead.” Soon, the men from Massachusetts were singing “Say Brothers, Will You Meet Us” with their own lyrics, such as, “John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave / But his soul goes marching on.” The soldiers’ version of the song became known as “John Brown’s Body.”

According to the American Battlefield Trust:

“In the early days of the War, the song ‘John Brown’s Body’ was wildly popular. Although in its original incarnation it had nothing to do with the notorious abolitionist leader hanged at Harpers Ferry on December 2, 1859, it became inextricably identified with him and acquired new verses that were sung by Federal troops and Union sympathizers alike. …

“In November of 1861, Julia Ward Howe, the daughter of a well-to-do New York City banker, was touring Union army camps near Washington, D.C. with Reverend James Freeman Clarke and with her husband, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, who was a member of President Lincoln’s Military Sanitary Commission and a fervent abolitionist. During the course of their camp visit, the group began to sing some of the currently popular war songs, among them ‘John Brown’s Body.’ In one of those rare flashes of inspiration that leave their mark on the history of a nation, Reverend Clarke was moved to suggest that Mrs. Howe pen new lyrics to the familiar tune. She replied that she had often thought of doing just exactly that.

“The following morning, as Mrs. Howe later described it, she ‘awoke … in the gray of the early dawn, and to my astonishment found that the wished-for lines were arranging themselves in my brain. I lay quite still until the last verse had completed itself in my thoughts, then hastily arose, saying to myself, “I shall lose this if I don’t write it down immediately.” ‘ “

Here are the lyrics Julia Ward Howe published in 1862:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.


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.

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth 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.

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah! 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.

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

Both sides in the Civil War believed God was on their side and invoked his name. Leading figures from President Abraham Lincoln to Confederate General Robert E. Lee proclaimed that the Almighty would ultimately decide the outcome of the war.

As a Christian woman and abolitionist, Howe invokes powerful biblical imagery as a reminder to beware of God’s power. The last line in the final stanza seems to summarize what the war was about for her and the Union: “As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free, While God is marching on.” This is a reference to ending slavery forever.

“Mrs. Howe’s lyrics first appeared on the front page of the Atlantic Monthly in February 1862,” reports the American Battlefield Trust. “Editor James T. Fields, who paid her $5 for the piece, is credited with having given the song the name by which it is known today.”

The hymn quickly became a national battle cry. In 1864, a Union soldier named Chaplain Charles McCabe was released from a Confederate prison in Richmond, Virginia, after contracting typhoid fever. He recovered and was invited to sing a solo of the “Battle Hymn” at the U.S. Capitol with President Lincoln in attendance. His performance was so well received that Lincoln, with tears in his eyes, asked McCabe to sing it again. He complied. The “Battle Hymn” was said to be a favorite of Union prisoners, who sang the hymn in defiance of their Confederate captors.

After the Civil War, Julia Ward Howe was active in the women’s suffrage movement and as an advocate for world peace. She died in 1910 at age 91, but “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” endures as one of the great American hymns. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ended his last public speech on April 3, 1968 — his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech — this way: “And so I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man! For mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!” He was assassinated the next day in Memphis, Tennessee.

John Steinbeck’s classic 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath  took its title from the Battle Hymn’s first stanza.

The enduring song has been embraced by Americans from every corner of the country, eliciting pride in our country, gratitude for our servicemen and servicewomen and appreciation for the freedoms we enjoy under the watchful eye of the Almighty.

Steve Villalobos is a Southern California professional who holds an undergraduate degree in American History and political science. He is also a contributor and writer for 1776history.com.

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