Posted on 11/18/2017 6:36:43 AM PST by iowamark
On or around this day in 1861, Julia Ward Howe is inspired to write the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Did you know that this much-loved patriotic song has its roots in the Civil War years?
Julia was the daughter of a Wall Street broker and a poet. She was well-educated and was able to speak fluently in several languages. Like her mother, she loved to write. She also became very interested in the abolitionist and suffragette causes.
Samuel Howe was progressive in many ways, but he wasn’t too keen on expanding women’s rights. He thought Julia’s place was in the home, performing domestic duties. Interesting, since he proceeded to lose her inheritance by making bad investments.
One has to wonder if she could have managed her own inheritance a bit better?
After a while, Julia got tired of being stifled. She had never really given up writing, but now she published some of her poems anonymously. Samuel wasn’t too happy about that! The matter apparently became so contentious that the two were on the brink of divorce. Samuel especially disliked the fact that Julia’s poems so often seemed to reflect the personal conflicts within their own marriage.
In fact, people figured out that Julia had written the poems. Oops.
Events swung in Julia’s favor in 1861. Julia and Samuel had decided to attend a review of Union trips, along with their minister, James Freeman Clarke. The Union soldiers were singing a tune about the abolitionist John Brown, who had been killed before the Civil War. The lyrics included such lines as: “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, His soul is marching on!”
Clarke wasn’t too impressed. He suggested to Julia that she try to write more inspirational lyrics for the same melody. Julia proceeded to do exactly that. She later remembered that she “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.’”
Perhaps you will recognize the lyrics that she wrote that morning.
“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.”
Julia’s hymn supported the Union army and challenged the Confederate cause. One historian notes that she “identifies the Army of the Potomac with the divine armies that would crush the forces of evil and inaugurate the millennium. . . .”
In February 1862, Julia’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was published in the Atlantic Monthly. The song was a hit and Julia’s fame spread quickly. In the years that followed, she traveled widely, lecturing and writing more than ever. She was President of a few associations, and she later became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Julia’s song began as a morale-booster for Union troops. Today, it has grown beyond that to such an extent that most people do not remember its beginnings.
Primary Sources:
The United States Army Field Band:
“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.
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.
I have read His fiery gospel writ in rows of burnished 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.
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.”
Christianity today needs a little more of this.
“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.”
Of course, none of this has happened yet . . .
These lyrics will not be true until the Lord returns to begin his millennial reign.
“And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh” (Revelation 19:19-21).
Imagine Liberal/Progressives’ reaction if this had become or in the future became the national anthem.
They would choke at the Christian lyrics.
I refuse to sing this anti-Christian and anti-South song that promoted a secular movement.
They did some “trampling out” in the 1861-65 era killing Christians like Pat Cleburne and States Rights Gist. But today the northeast is post-Christian but the South still has some holdouts who follow Biblical principles.
“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.”
It was once suggested this replace the National Anthem, Can’t you hear the ACLU and other atheist outfits screaming bloody murder!
I am surprised this song has not been banned in schools, and public gatherings.
Thank you for posting this
I already knew it. It is good to have it again
Sadly, this inspiring verse, inspired by Genesis 3:15, is omitted from just about every hymnal these days. However, the country-western singer Lee Greenwood includes it in a recent rendition of the hymn.
You might prefer God Save the South, which came out at abut the same time and was widely sung on the other side of the Potomac.
Bump
A few months ago I pulled together a medly of four patriot tunes and published on YouTube (8 minutes).
The third song is The Battle Hymn as sung and played by the US Army Band and Chorus -- very stirring to see men and women in uniform singing that last stanza. Enjoy.
Can you cite which words you'd call "anti-Christian" or even "anti-South"?
You know, many Southerners supported the Union cause.
They were not "anti-South" but were certainly anti-slavery.
Monterrosa-24: "...today the northeast is post-Christian but the South still has some holdouts who follow Biblical principles."
Not necessarily.
This map shows there are plenty of Trump voters outside the North East's big cities.
This song became popular when the war, originally to “preserve the union”, was repackaged in 1863 as a war to wipe out slavery. It’s a propaganda piece of music exploiting religion. Howe takes John Brown’s Baby music and write new anti South agitprop piece turning the Civil War into a religious war. Brilliant.
Nothing "anti-South" about it, but certainly Howe's song puts the lie to our pro-Confederates' claim that Civil War was "not about slavery".
As for "religious war", well... people who are ignorant of the Bible sometimes claim it supports slavery.
It does not.
At most it tolerates slavery where lawful, but not for God's people.
That's what Exodus & Jeremiah 34 is all about.
Why did Judah fall to the Babylonians?
For the same reason the South fell to the United States.
Read it and weep.
I’m used to the blue in Washington state but there sure is a lot of blue in the southern states
Therefore we could argue that California & New York have more conservatives than Georgia & Alabama!
The biggest issue is not "north vs south", but rather, pretty much: our urban centers vs the rest of the United States.
And did you note she was the daughter of a Wall Street Banker? Funny that.
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