The Battle Hymn of the Republic

"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", also known as "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" outside of the United States, is a song 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 (Old Testament, Isaiah 63; New Testament, Rev. 19) with the American Civil War. Since that time, it has become an extremely popular and well-known American patriotic song.

History

Oh! Brothers

The "Glory, Hallelujah" tune was a folk hymn developed in the oral hymn tradition of camp meetings in the southern United States and first documented in the early 1800s. In the first known version, the text includes the verse "Oh! Brothers will you meet me(3X)/On Canaan's happy shore?"[1] and chorus "There we'll shout and give him glory (3x)/For glory is his own";[2] this developed into the familiar "Glory, glory, hallelujah" chorus by the 1850s. The tune and variants of these words spread across both the southern and northern United States.[3]

As the "John Brown's Body" Song

At a flag-raising ceremony at Fort Warren, near Boston, on Sunday May 12, 1861, the John Brown song, using the well known "Oh! Brothers" tune and the "Glory, Hallelujah" chorus, was publicly played "perhaps for the first time". The American Civil War had begun the previous month.

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."[4]

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 decomposition, 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.[4]

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.[5]

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.[6][7]

Creation of the "Battle Hymn"

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 6th 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,[8] 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".[9] 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.[10]

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!"[11]

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

"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.
\relative c'' { \partial 16 g16 g8. g16 g8. f16 e8. g16 c8. d16 e8. e16 e8. d16 c4 c8. c16 a8. a16 a8. b16 c8. c16 b8. a16 \partial 2. g8. a16 g8. e16 g4} \addlyrics {Mine eyes have seen the glo -- ry of the com -- ing of the Lord: He is tramp -- ling out the vin -- tage where the grapes of wrath are stored; }

Lyrics

Howe submitted the lyrics she wrote to The Atlantic Monthly, and it was first published in the February 1862 issue of the magazine.[12][13]

First published version

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*,[1]
While God is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
While God is marching on.

  1. ^ Howe, Julia Ward. Battle hymn of the republic, Washington, D.C:Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments [n.d] http://www.loc.gov/item/amss001991/

* Many modern recordings of the Battle Hymn of the Republic utilize the lyric "As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free" as opposed to the lyric originally written by Julia Ward Howe.

Other versions

Howe's original manuscript differed slightly from the published version. Most significantly, it included a final verse:

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

Popularity and widespread use

In the years since the Civil War, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" has been used frequently as an American patriotic song.[14] This song is usually heard at the national conventions of both the Republican Party and Democratic Party, 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. In 1994, it was played at the state funeral of Richard Nixon. It was also played at the state funeral of Ronald Reagan in 2004.

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

Jaye P. Morgan recorded this song on her 1960 MGM Records album titled "Up North."

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.[15]

Joan Baez performed the song around 1962-63, and a live recording from a concert is featured in the album Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2

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.[16]

Johnny Cash performed it on his musical variety show on September 27, 1969, closing the show with The Tennessee Three, The Carter Family, and The Statler Brothers.

Anita Bryant performed it January 17, 1971, at the halftime show of Super Bowl V.

The Beach Boys recorded the song on November 5, 1974 with lead vocals by Mike Love.[17]

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, his version reached #11 on the adult contemporary chart and #33 on the Billboard Hot 100.[18]

The Christian Heavy Metal band Stryper covered this song on their 1985 release "Soldiers Under Command" album.

Hosanna! Music used this hymn in the 20th album of Praise & Worship Series "Army Of God" with the worship leader Randy Rothwell recorded live in 1988

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.

The children's Christian group Cedarmont Kids recorded a shorter, three-verse version of the song on their album "Songs Of America."

The Mighty Sound of Maryland performs an arrangement of the song as a part of their pregame show.[19]

The Pride of Minnesota performs an arrangement of the song while marching the honor guard down the field through a series of "swinging gates" during their pregame show.[20]

Cultural influences

Words from the first verse gave John Steinbeck's wife Carol Steinbeck the title of his 1939 masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath.[21] 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.[22]

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."

Bishop Michael Curry of North Carolina, after his election as the first African-American Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, gave a sermon to the Church's General Convention on July 3, 2015 in which the lyrics of The Battle Hymn framed the message of God's love. After the "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, His truth is marching on," a letter of congratulations from President Obama was read.[23]

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 1999 sci-fi western Wild Wild West. The inscription, "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord," is written at the feet of the sculpture of the fallen soldier at the American Cemetery in Normandy, France.

Other songs set to this tune

Some songs make use of both the melody and elements of the lyrics of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", either in tribute or as a parody:

Other songs simply use the melody, i.e. the melody of "John Brown's Body", with no lyrical connection to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic":

"An American Trilogy" is a song arranged by country songwriter Mickey Newbury and made popular by Elvis Presley. It is a medley of three 19th century songs—"Dixie", "All My Trials" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".

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

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

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On by John Stauffer and Benjamin Soskis. Oxford University Press, 6 June 2013. ISBN 9780199339587. p. 21. Accessed via Google Books 1 June 2014
  2. ↑ The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On by John Stauffer and Benjamin Soskis. Oxford University Press, 6 June 2013. ISBN 9780199339587. p. 18. Accessed via Google Books 1 June 2014
  3. ↑ The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On by John Stauffer and Benjamin Soskis. Oxford University Press, 6 June 2013. ISBN 9780199339587. pp. 26-27. Accessed via Google Books 1 June 2014
  4. 1 2 Kimball 1890, p. 372.
  5. ↑ Kimball 1890, pp. 373–4.
  6. ↑ Cutler, Frederick Morse (1917), The old First Massachusetts coast artillery in war and peace (Google Books), Boston: Pilgrim Press, pp. 105–6.
  7. ↑ Cutler, Frederick Morse (1920), The 55th artillery (CAC) in the American expeditionary forces, France, 1918 (Google Books), Worcester, MA: Commonwealth Press, pp. 261ff.
  8. ↑ Williams, Gary. Hungry Heart: The Literary Emergence of Julia Ward Howe. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999: 208. ISBN 1-55849-157-0
  9. ↑ Julia Ward Howe, 1819–1910 I, U Ppenn, 1912-06-01, retrieved 2010-07-02. See also footnote in To-Day, 1885 (v.3, Feb), p.88
  10. ↑ Howe, Julia Ward. Reminiscences: 1819–1899. Houghton, Mifflin: New York, 1899. p. 275.
  11. ↑ Hall, Roger L. New England Songster. PineTree Press, 1997.
  12. ↑ Howe, Julia Ward (February 1862). "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". The Atlantic Monthly 9 (52): 10. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  13. ↑ Stossel, Sage (September 2001). "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  14. ↑ "Civil War Music: The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Civilwar.org. 1910-10-17. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
  15. ↑ "Battle Hymn of the Republic (original version)". American music preservation. Retrieved 2010-07-02.
  16. ↑ Sanders, Coyne Steven (1990). Rainbow's End: The Judy Garland Show. Zebra Books. ISBN 0-8217-3708-2 (paperback ed).
  17. ↑ Doe, Andrew Grayham. "VAULTS". Endless Summer Quarterly. Retrieved December 11, 2014.
  18. ↑ Williams, Andy, Battle Hymn of the Republic (chart positions), Music VF, retrieved June 16, 2013.
  19. ↑ "Pregame Show". YouTube. Mighty Sound of Maryland. 8 Feb 2016. Retrieved 14 March 2016.
  20. ↑ mrjbening (2011-09-26), UMn Marching Band - Battle Hymn, retrieved 2016-04-21
  21. ↑ DeMott, Robert (1992). Robert DeMott's Introduction to The Grapes of Wrath. USA: Viking Penguin. p. xviii. ISBN 0-14-018640-9.
  22. ↑ "Terrible Swift Sword: The Battle of Gettysburg – Board Game". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
  23. ↑ http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2015/07/03/video-presiding-bishop-elect-michael-curry-preaches-at-general-convention-closing-eucharist/
  24. ↑ Walls, "Marching Song," Arkansas Historical Quarterly (Winter 2007), 401–2.
  25. ↑ To Hell with Georgia (YouTube). 2014-09-27. Retrieved 2014-09-27.
  26. ↑ "American History X". Memorable quotes. IMDb. 1998.
  27. ↑ "Gloryland 1994 World Cup Song". YouTube. Google. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  28. ↑ http://membership.rabbitohs.com.au/info/rabbitohs-club-song/
  29. ↑ Steffe, William (1862). "Solidarity Forever: Melody – "Battle Hymn of the Republic"". Musica net. Retrieved 2010-07-02.
  30. ↑ Chandler, Len; Seeger, Pete (2008-11-14). Move on Over (John Brown's Body) (YouTube). Google. Retrieved 2010-07-02.
  31. ↑ Uppo-Nalle (1991), Suomen kansallisfilmografia (2004), on ELONET, National Audiovisual Archive and the Finnish Board of Film Classification, http://79.141.150.54/title/ek2xf3/muut
  32. ↑ Trois milliards de gens sur Terre [Three billion people on Earth] (in French), Amazon.
  33. ↑ Mathieu, Mireille, Trois milliards de gens sur Terre (video), Daily motion.
  34. ↑ You tube, Google.
  35. ↑ 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, 2005, pp. 254–5, ISBN 978-4-636-20666-1.
  36. ↑ Little Peter rabbit song (PDF), UK: Book trust.
  37. ↑ Het lied van geen taal (PDF), BE: Vrije Universiteit Brussel
  38. ↑ https://play.spotify.com/track/1ozw0hSfjmhSVzPaanHcwC

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