The Battle Hymn of the Republic

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"The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
Cover of the 1862 sheet music for "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
Cover of the 1862 sheet music for "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
Lyrics Julia Ward Howe, 1861
Music William Steffe, 1856; arranged by James E. Greenleaf, C. S. Hall,
and C. B. Marsh, 1861
Music sample
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic", performed by Frank C. Stanley, Elise Stevenson, and a mixed quartet in 1908.

"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a hymn by American writer Julia Ward Howe using the music from the song "John Brown's Body". Howe's more famous lyrics were written in November 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. The song links the judgment of the wicked at the end of time (New Testament, Rev. 19) with the American Civil War. Since that time it has become an extremely popular and well-known American patriotic song.

Contents

History [edit]

The tune was written around 1856 by William Steffe. The first known lyrics were called "Canaan's Happy Shore" or "Brothers, Will You Meet Me?" and the song was sung as a campfire spiritual. The tune spread across the United States.

As the "John Brown's Body" Song [edit]

At a flag-raising ceremony at Fort Warren, near Boston, on Sunday May 12, 1861, the John Brown song was publicly played "perhaps for the first time". The American Civil War had begun the previous month.

Newspapers reported troops singing the song as they marched in the streets of Boston on July 18, 1861, and there were a "rash" of broadside printings of the song with substantially the same words as the undated John Brown Song! broadside, stated by Kimball to be the first published edition, and the broadside with music by C. S. Marsh copyrighted on July 16, 1861, also published by C.S. Hall (see images displayed on this page). Other publishers also came out with versions of the John Brown Song and claimed copyright.[1]

Kimball's account [edit]

In 1890, George Kimball wrote his account of how the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the Massachusetts militia, known as the "Tiger" Battalion, collectively worked out the lyrics to "John Brown's Body". Kimball wrote:

We had a jovial Scotchman in the battalion, named John Brown. . . . and as he happened to bear the identical name of the old hero of Harper's Ferry, he became at once the butt of his comrades. If he made his appearance a few minutes late among the working squad, or was a little tardy in falling into the company line, he was sure to be greeted with such expressions as "Come, old fellow, you ought to be at it if you are going to help us free the slaves"; or, "This can't be John Brown--why, John Brown is dead." And then some wag would add, in a solemn, drawling tone, as if it were his purpose to give particular emphasis to the fact that John Brown was really, actually dead: "Yes, yes, poor old John Brown is dead; his body lies mouldering in the grave."[2]

According to Kimball, these sayings became by-words among the soldiers and, in a communal effort—similar in many ways to the spontaneous composition of camp meeting songs described above—were gradually put to the tune of "Say, Brothers":

As originally published 1862 in The Atlantic Monthly
Finally ditties composed of the most nonsensical, doggerel rhymes, setting for the fact that John Brown was dead and that his body was undergoing the process of dissolution, began to be sung to the music of the hymn above given. These ditties underwent various ramifications, until eventually the lines were reached,--
"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
His soul's marching on."
And,--
"He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord,
His soul's marching on."
These lines seemed to give general satisfaction, the idea that Brown's soul was "marching on" receiving recognition at once as having a germ of inspiration in it. They were sung over and over again with a great deal of gusto, the "Glory hallelujah" chorus being always added.[2]

Some leaders of the battalion, feeling the words were coarse and irreverent, tried to urge the adoption of more fitting lyrics, but to no avail. The lyrics were soon prepared for publication by members of the battalion, together with publisher C. S. Hall. They selected and polished verses they felt appropriate, and may even have enlisted the services of a local poet to help polish and create verses.[3]

The official histories of the old First Artillery and of the 55th Artillery (1918) also record the Tiger Battalion's role in creating the John Brown Song, confirming the general thrust of Kimball's version with a few additional details.[4][5]

Creation of the "Battle Hymn" [edit]

Kimball's battalion was dispatched to Murray, Kentucky early in the Civil War, and Julia Ward Howe heard this song during a public review of the troops outside Washington on Upton Hill, Virginia. Rufus R. Dawes, then in command of Company "K" of the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, stated in his memoirs that the man who started the singing was Sergeant John Ticknor of his company. Howe's companion at the review, the Reverend James Freeman Clarke,[6] suggested to Howe that she write new words for the fighting men's song. Staying at the Willard Hotel in Washington on the night of November 18, 1861, Howe awoke with the words of the song in her mind and in near darkness wrote the verses to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic".[7] Of the writing of the lyrics, Howe remembered:

I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly. 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.' So, with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed, and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered to have used the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.[8]

Howe's "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was first published on the front page of The Atlantic Monthly of February 1862. The sixth verse written by Howe, which is less commonly sung, was not published at that time. The song was also published as a broadside in 1863 by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments in Philadelphia.

Both "John Brown" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic" were published in Father Kemp's Old Folks Concert Tunes in 1874 and reprinted in 1889. Both songs had the same Chorus with an additional "Glory" in the second line: "Glory! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!"[9]

Julia Ward Howe was the wife of Samuel Gridley Howe, the famed scholar in education of the blind. Samuel and Julia were also active leaders in anti-slavery politics and strong supporters of the Union. Samuel Howe was a member of the Secret Six, the group who funded John Brown's work.

Score [edit]

"Canaan's Happy Shore" has a verse and chorus of equal metrical length and both verse and chorus share an identical melody and rhythm. "John Brown's Body" has more syllables in its verse and uses a more rhythmically active variation of the "Canaan" melody to accommodate the additional words in the verse. In Howe's lyrics, the words of the verse are packed into a yet longer line, with even more syllables than "John Brown's Body". The verse still uses the same underlying melody as the refrain, but the addition of many dotted rhythms to the underlying melody allows for the more complex verse to fit the same melody as the comparatively short refrain.

One version of the melody, in C major, begins as below. This is an example of the mediant-octave modal frame.
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" melody beginning

Lyrics [edit]

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)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, 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)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
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.
(Chorus)
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.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
While God is marching on.
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.

Influence [edit]

Popularity and widespread use [edit]

In the years since the Civil War, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" has been used frequently as an American patriotic song.[10] This song is usually heard at the national conventions of both the Republican Party and Democratic Party,[citation needed] and is often sung at Presidential inaugurations.

The song was notably played on September 14, 2001 at the Washington National Cathedral and at St Paul's Cathedral in London during memorial services for the victims of the September 11 attacks.

This was one of Sir Winston Churchill's favorite songs. At his request this song was played at his funeral in St Paul's Cathedral in 1965.

The Marine Corps Band performed it when Pope Benedict XVI was greeted on the South Lawn of the White House by President George W. Bush on April 16, 2008.

Recordings and public performances [edit]

In 1960 the Mormon Tabernacle Choir won the Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Vocal Group or Chorus. The 45 rpm single record, which was arranged and edited by Columbia Records and Cleveland disk jockey Bill Randle, was an unlikely commercial success and reached #13 on Billboard's Hot 100 the previous autumn.[11]

Judy Garland performed this song on her weekly television show in December 1963. She originally wanted to do a dedication show for President John F. Kennedy upon his assassination but CBS would not let her, so she performed the song without being able to mention his name.[12]

Andy Williams experienced commercial success in 1968 with an a cappella version recorded at Robert Kennedy's funeral. Backed by the St. Charles Borromeo choir, this version peaked at Billboard #33 pop, #11 easy listening.

Whitney Houston performed this song at her March 31, 1991 concert to the troops called "Welcome Home Heroes" also in Shanghai and Beijing on July 22, and July 25, 2004 during the Soul Divas Tour.

The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir also sang this song at President Barack Obama's Second Presidential Inauguration Ceremony on January 21, 2013.

Cultural influences [edit]

Words from the first verse gave John Steinbeck's wife Carol Steinbeck the title of his 1939 masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath.[13] The title of John Updike's In the Beauty of the Lilies also came from this song, as did Terrible Swift Sword and Never Call Retreat, two volumes in Bruce Catton's Centennial History of the Civil War. Terrible Swift Sword is also the name of a board wargame simulating the Battle of Gettysburg.[14]

The lyrics of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" appear in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s sermons and speeches, most notably in his speech "How Long, Not Long" from the steps of the Alabama State Capitol building on March 25, 1965 after the 3rd Selma March, and in his final sermon "I've Been to the Mountaintop", delivered in Memphis, Tennessee on the evening of April 3, 1968, the night before his assassination. In fact, the latter sermon, King's last public words, ends with the first lyrics of the "Battle Hymn", "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

The tune has played a role in many movies where patriotic music has been required, including the 1970 World War II war comedy Kelly's Heroes, and the 1997 sci-fi western Wild Wild West.

Spanish version [edit]

The tune with the following alternative lyrics in Spanish is a popular hymn used in Catholic churches in Latin America.

¿Has oído las cadencias de una marcha sin igual,
que satura de victoria la conciencia terrenal?
Sus acentos melodiosos son emblema celestial,
de gloria y devoción.
Gloria, gloria, aleluya.
Gloria, gloria, aleluya.
Gloria, gloria, aleluya.
Jesús es el Señor.
Es la Iglesia que en su marcha representa la deidad,
y a su paso va tocando la creciente humanidad
con palabras cuyo efecto reproducen con verdad
completa salvación.
(chorus)
En las filas del Maestro soy valiente luchador
que buscando a los perdidos me dedico con valor.
No me arredran los conflictos ni la dura oposición.
Jesús es mi Señor.
(chorus)
(chorus)
¡Amén! ¡Amén!

Other songs set to this tune [edit]

  • The tune has been used with alternative lyrics numerous times. The University of Georgia's fight song, “Glory Glory to Old Georgia,” is based on the patriotic tune, and has been sung at American college football games since 1909. Other college teams also use songs set to the same tune. One such is "Glory, Glory to Old Auburn" at Auburn University. Another is "Glory Colorado", traditionally played by the band and sung after touchdowns scored by the Colorado Buffaloes. "Glory Colorado" has been a fight song at the University of Colorado (Boulder) for more than one hundred years.
  • In Australia, the most famous version of the song is used by the South Sydney Rugby League club – "Glory Glory to South Sydney". The song mentions all the teams in the competition when the song was written, and says what Souths did to them when they played. Each verse ends with, "They wear the Red and Green".
  • "Kalle-Kustaan muori makaa hiljaa haudassaan, ja yli haudan me marssimme näin" (Kalle-Kustaa's hag lies silently in her grave, and we're marching over the grave like this) is a popular derivative song labouring the same tune sung often by the Finnish military when marching on foot.[citation needed]
  • A modified version of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was also used in the film American History X as Seth Ryan, played by Ethan Suplee, was driving his van and singing along to the lyrics while it was playing on the radio.[19] Similarly, Oh! What a Lovely War has a scene in which some soldiers make up their own lyrics.
  • "Queen's College Colours," written in 1898 by student Alfred Lavell to inspire the Queen's University football team to victory after a disappointing loss to the University of Toronto, is also set to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".
  • "Golya Golya" is a popular folk song in Felcsik in Transylvania (Romania).[citation needed]
  • The progressive metal band Dream Theater uses a version of this song set to a minor key as a conclusion to their song "In the Name of God" from their album "Train of Thought"

Media [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Battle Hymn of the Republic

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ James Fuld, 2000 The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk Courier Dover, ISBN 0-486-41475-2, page 133,
  2. ^ a b George Kimball, "Origin of the John Brown Song", New England Magazine, new series 1 (1890):372 online via Cornell University)
  3. ^ George Kimball, "Origin of the John Brown Song", New England Magazine, new series 1 (1890):373-374. (online via Cornell University)
  4. ^ Frederick Morse Cutler, The old First Massachusetts coast artillery in war and peace, Pilgrim Press, Boston, 1917, p. 105-106 (online via Google Books)
  5. ^ Frederick Morse Cutler, The 55th artillery (C.A.C.) in the American expeditionary forces, France, 1918, Commonwealth Press, Worcester, Mass, 1920, p. 261ff (online via Google Books)
  6. ^ Williams, Gary. Hungry Heart: The Literary Emergence of Julia Ward Howe. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999: 208. ISBN 1-55849-157-0
  7. ^ "Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Vol. I". Digital.library.upenn.edu. 1912-06-01. Retrieved 2010-07-02. 
  8. ^ Howe, Julia Ward. Reminiscences: 1819-1899.Houghton, Mifflin: New York, 1899. p. 275.
  9. ^ Hall, Roger L. New England Songster. PineTree Press, 1997.
  10. ^ "Civil War Music: The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Civilwar.org. 1910-10-17. Retrieved 2012-08-05. 
  11. ^ "Battle Hymn of the Republic (original version)". Americanmusicpreservation.com. Retrieved 2010-07-02. 
  12. ^ Sanders, Coyne Steven (1990). Rainbow's End: The Judy Garland Show. Zebra Books. ISBN 0-8217-3708-2 (paperback edition).
  13. ^ DeMott, Robert (1992). Robert DeMott's Introduction to The Grapes of Wrath. Viking Penguin, a Division of Penguin Books USA, Inc. pp. xviii. ISBN 0-14-018640-9. 
  14. ^ "Terrible Swift Sword: The Battle of Gettysburg | Board Game". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2012-08-05. 
  15. ^ Walls, “Marching Song,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly (Winter 2007), 401-402.
  16. ^ "musicnet.org: ''Solidarity Forever'': Melody - "Battle Hymn of the Republic", William Steffe?, 1862". Musicanet.org. Retrieved 2010-07-02. 
  17. ^ "Gloryland 1994 World Cup Song". YouTube. Retrieved 2010-09-28. 
  18. ^ Len Chandler & Pete Seeger - Move on Over (John Brown's Body). YouTube. 2008-11-14. Retrieved 2010-07-02. 
  19. ^ "American History X (1998) - Memorable quotes". 
  20. ^ 長田暁二 世界の愛唱歌 1000字でわかる名曲ものがたり(in Japanese) Yamaha Music Media Corporation pp.254-255, 2005 ISBN 9784636206661

Further reading [edit]

  • Claghorn, Charles Eugene, "Battle Hymn: The Story Behind The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Papers of the Hymn Society of America, XXIX.
  • Hall, Roger Lee. Glory, Hallelujah: Civil War Songs and Hymns, Stoughton: PineTree Press, 2012.
  • Jackson, Popular Songs of Nineteenth-Century America, note on "Battle Hymn of the Republic", pp. 263–264.
  • McWhirter, Christian. Battle Hymns: The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.
  • Scholes, Percy A. "John Brown's Body", The Oxford Companion of Music. Ninth edition. London: Oxford University Press, 1955.
  • Stutler, Boyd B. Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! The Story of "John Brown's Body" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Cincinnati: The C. J. Krehbiel Co., 1960.
  • Clifford, Deborah Pickman. 'Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Biography of Julia Ward Howe. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1978.
  • Vowell, Sarah. "John Brown's Body," in The Rose and the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad. Ed. by Sean Wilentz and Greil Marcus. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.

External links [edit]

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Battle Hymn of the Republic

Sheet music [edit]

Audio [edit]

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