Battle Hymn Of The Republic

A man from Vermont named Thomas Bishop joined the Massachusetts Infantry before the outbreak of war, and wrote a popular set of lyrics titled “ John Brown's Body ” (after the radical Abolitionist ), which became one of his unit’s walking songs. Bishop's battalion was dispatched to Washington, D.C. in 1862. As they marched through the city, a woman named Julia Ward Howe , from the steps of the Capitol building, heard the soldiers loudly singing one of the tune’s filthier sets of lyrics. Deeply offended, Ms. Howe was inspired to write new, pious words for the fighting men’s song, and the current version of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was born.

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.

INFLUENCE ON LATER CULTURE

" The Battle Hymn Of The Republic, Updated " (1901), was Mark Twain 's mocking parody of the lyrics, from the "point of view" of an American industrialist, inspired by then-recent events of the Spanish and Philippine Wars . The melody of the song is the basis for the popular Union song " Solidarity Forever ", written by Ralph Chaplin in 1915 . Paratroopers during World War II made up another variation, Gory, Gory . In 1960 , the Mormon Tabernacle Choir won the Grammy Award for Best Performance By A Vocal Group Or Chorus at That Year's Awards Ceremony with a recording that replaced the line "''let us die to make men free''" with the more cheery "''let us ''live'' to make men free''", a variation that has since caught on to some extent.

SCORE

One version of the melody, in C Major , begins as below. This is an example of the Mediant-octave Modal Frame .

LYRICS

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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!

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

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of 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."

::Chorus

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

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

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

NOTES

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Battle Hymn Of The Republic