The Battle Hymn of the Republic



Julia Ward Howe c. 1861

 Today marks the 150^th anniversary of the publication of Julia Ward Howe’s “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Howe, wife of a Samuel Gridley Howe, a prominent Boston physician and abolitionist (who started the Perkins School for the Blind) related that she was:

“…invited, one day, to attend a review of troops at some distance from the town [Washington, DC].  While we were engaged in watching the manœuvres, a sudden movement of the enemy necessitated immediate action. The review was discontinued, and we saw a detachment of soldiers gallop to the assistance of a small body of our men who were in imminent danger of being surrounded and cut off from retreat. The regiments remaining on the field were ordered to march to their cantonments. We returned to the city very slowly, of necessity, for the troops nearly filled the road. My dear minister [Preacher and Theologian James Freeman Clarke ] was in the carriage with me, as were several other friends.  To beguile the rather tedious drive, we sang from time to time snatches of the army songs so popular at that time, concluding, I think, with

"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground;
His soul is marching on."

The soldiers seemed to like this, and answered back, "Good for you!" Mr. Clarke said, "Mrs. Howe, why do you not write some good words for that stirring tune?"  I replied that I had often wished to do this, but had not as yet found in my mind any leading toward it.”



Julia Ward Howe's handwritten copy
of The Battle Hym of the Republic

Howe wrote how she: "...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. I had learned to do this when, on previous occasions, attacks of versification had visited me in the night, and I feared to have recourse to a light lest I should wake the baby, who slept near me. I was always obliged to decipher my scrawl before another night should intervene, as it was only legible while the matter was fresh in my mind. At this time, having completed my writing, I returned to bed and fell asleep, saying to myself, "I like this better than most things that I have written."


The Atlantic Monthly, February 1862



Howe submitted her poem to The Atlantic Monthly, which paid her $4 and published it on February 1, 1962.

 

See: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32603/32603-h/32603-h.htm#the_plan_of_the_battle and

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/flashbks/battlehymn-original.htm.