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.
The last stanza includes this statement: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!
This lends credence to the off-heard claim that the north was “fighting to free the slaves.”
Here's the problem with that: the US constitution enshrined slavery when the document was ratified by the slave states, and erstwhile slave states, of New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland.
I think there were others. Yes, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia also voted to include slavery in the Constitution.
If anyone took up the bayonet to overthrow slavery, they were taking up arms to overthrow the US constitution. There is a word for that.
Too bad the north didn't overthrow slavery peacefully with a constitutional amendment. Before the war. It would have avoided some hard feelings. And over a half-million dead.