Battle-Hymn of the Republic

J ULIA WARD HOWE was in Washington during the winter of 1861, when the question of the abolition of slavery was at fever-heat, and the outbreak of the Civil War at hand. She visited the soldiers encamped outside the city, and heard them singing "John Brown's Body." The majesty of the music to which those words were set struck her at once, and she determined to write new words that should be a hymn of patriotism. The opening line came to her easily, almost as if by inspiration, and she had completed the poem in a very short time. She took it back to Boston with her, and gave it to James T. Fields, editor of the Atlantic Monthly. He printed it on the first page of that magazine for February, 1862, giving it its present title.

The poem attracted very little attention at first, although it was copied into several newspapers. Then one of these newspapers was smuggled into Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia; Chaplain Charles C. McCabe read the poem aloud to a few of the prisoners, and soon all the Union soldiers there were singing it.

As the Union prisoners were released they brought the hymn back to the North with them, and it spread in this fashion until it had become the most popular anthem on the Northern side.

For majesty of thought and beauty of word "The Battle-Hymn of the Republic" stands first among all the poems called forth by the Civil War, and among the first of all poems inspired by patriotism.

Battle-Hymn Of The Republic

by Julia Ward Howe