The Battle Hymn of the Republic

The "Battle Hymn of the Republic", also known as "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" or "Glory, Glory Hallelujah" outside of the United States, is a popular American patriotic song written by the abolitionist writer Julia Ward Howe.

Howe wrote her lyrics to the music of the song "John Brown's Body" in November 1861 and first published them in ''The Atlantic Monthly'' in February 1862. The song links the judgment of the wicked at the end of the age (through allusions to biblical passages such as and ) with the American Civil War.

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, "Canaan's Happy Shore," the text includes the verse "Oh! Brothers will you meet me (3×)/On Canaan's happy shore?" and chorus "There we'll shout and give Him glory (3×)/For glory is His own." 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.

As the "John Brown's Body" song

At a flag-raising ceremony at Fort Warren, near Boston, Massachusetts, on Sunday, May 12, 1861, the song "John Brown's Body", 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:

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":

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.

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.

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, D.C., 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, 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 wrote the verses to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Of the writing of the lyrics, Howe remembered:

Howe's "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!"

Julia Ward Howe was married to 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'' \addlyrics

Lyrics

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

First published version

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

Other versions

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

In the 1862 sheet music, the chorus always begins:

Recordings and public performances

* The song is played by a US Army marching band in the 1951 film ''The Tall Target'' shortly after a plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln in April 1861, is foiled. This was several months before the song was actually composed.
* In 1953, Marian Anderson sang the song before a live television audience of 60 million persons, broadcast live over the NBC and CBS networks, as part of ''The Ford 50th Anniversary Show''.
*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 a commercial success and reached #13 on Billboard's Hot 100 the previous autumn. It is the choir's only Top 40 hit in the Hot 100.
* The song is included along with her performance of "We Shall Overcome" on ''Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2'', live material recorded during Joan Baez' concert tours of early 1963.
*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.
*At Winston Churchill's funeral January 30, 1965. Churchill's favourite hymns were sung, including the "Battle Hymn of the Republic".
*Andy Williams experienced commercial success in 1968 with an a cappella version recorded at Senator 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.
*In the movie ''Kelly's Heroes'', Oddball is playing it (in the rain) as his tanks meet up with Kelly and the rest of the troops.
*Anita Bryant performed it January 17, 1971, at the halftime show of Super Bowl V. She would also do it again on January 25, 1973 during the burial services for LBJ at his Texas ranch.
*The Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed the song at the inaugural parade of President Ronald Reagan on January 20, 1981.
*The song is one of the three American songs included in "An American Trilogy", a 1971 song medley written and performed by country composer Mickey Newbury. Newbury's song was popularized by Elvis Presley, who included it as a showstopper in his concerts. Presley recorded and issued "An American Trilogy" several times.
*The song is included on the Real Ale and Thunder Band's album ''At Vespers'', recorded at St. Laurence's Parish Church, Downton by BBC Radio Solent, 18 November 1984.
*Stryper recorded this song on their 1985 album ''Soldiers Under Command''.
*It was performed in St. Paul's Cathedral on September 14, 2001, as part of a memorial service for those lost in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
*The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir sang the song at President Barack Obama's Second Presidential Inauguration Ceremony on January 21, 2013.
*The Mother Bethel AME
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