If you started to softly sing “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” most Americans would quickly identify the tune as “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” And they’d be right — but only up to a point.
Julia Ward Howe, a poet and ardent abolitionist, was inspired to write the “Battle Hymn” after meeting President Abraham Lincoln and watching troops parade. (Library of Congress)
The words to one of America’s most performed — and most bellicose — patriotic songs were composed by Boston writer Julia Ward Howe during the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s.
Bellicose? Consider this verse:
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.
Years after the Civil War, that last line was softened to read, “Let us LIVE to make men free.”
Even so, I was always amazed, as a young man, to find “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in my Presbyterian church hymnal, next to gentler tunes such as “Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light.” (It is after all, I concede, the Battle Hymn of the Republic.) Rather than connecting it to God, I kept picturing bloody Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, which I don’t think was what the choirmaster had in mind.
But back to the story of the song:
“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was one of the “Songs of War” depicted in a print by Winslow Homer for “Harper’s Weekly” magazine in 1861. (Library of Congress)
During a stay in Washington, D.C., Julia Ward Howe was inspired by the tune that Union soldiers were singing as they drilled by the thousands on Pennsylvania Avenue beneath her hotel window. So she wrote words such as, “He hast loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword.”
The tune had originated as a Methodist camp song, “Say Brother, Will You Meet Me,” from which Julia Howe borrowed some of the words, such as “Glory, glory, hallelujah” in the chorus.
But those marching troops weren’t singing about God. They were singing about one man: John Brown. He was a wild-eyed abolitionist who found slavery unspeakable.
Brown and his sons murdered several slaveholders in the state of Kansas. Then, two years before war between north and south broke out, they rode east and snuck into the little town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, where the U.S. army kept a well-stocked armory.
After John Brown and his men were either flushed out of the Harpers Ferry arsenal or killed, the building burned to the ground. (Library of Congress)
There, the Browns and some followers raided and seized the armory and rifle-making works, hoping to use the guns for a slave rebellion. But he lingered too long. Federal soldiers captured him and, in the words of the song “John Brown’s Body” that was written about him, “they hanged him for a traitor.” Now, the song continued, “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave.”
Those are the words that the soldiers drilling below Julia Ward Howe’s window were singing — words she changed to fit the patriotic spirit that overcame her.
There’s irony in the John Brown story.
Remember, his raid on Harpers Ferry took place two years before civil war erupted. The nation was bitterly divided over slavery, but still technically united. The young lieutenant who led the relief column of federal troops that surrounded and captured John Brown was Robert E. Lee, who would later leave the U.S. Army to lead his native Virginia in the unsuccessful fight for independence by breakaway Confederate states.
The great lithographers Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives were among those who produced idealized portrayals of John Brown as a martyr. (Library of Congress)
When John Brown was imprisoned, there were schemes to break him out of jail, but Brown said he did not want to escape. He knew he would be a martyr for the cause of abolition. As he put it, “I am worth considerably more to hang than for any other purpose.”
Slavery was an institution, not just in the South but also in border states such as Maryland and Delaware. People didn’t have to confront it unless they chose to. But Brown made slavery front-page news. As U.S. Park Ranger Marsha Starkey once told me, “I like to compare John Brown to a maul, splitting a block of wood. He facilitated the split in the country by what he did and what he said.”
Starkey was posted at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia. WEST Virginia. The town didn’t jump over a border from Virginia. It, along with surrounding Jefferson County and 40 other upland counties where slavery had never taken root, broke away from slaveholding Virginia about a year into the fighting.
At the point of Union soldiers’ bayonets, two other adjoining, slaveholding counties were also mustered into the new state — briefly called “Kanawha.”
This is where John Brown’s body lay “a-mouldering,” on the grounds of a farm he once rented in New York state. (Library of Congress)
Today, virtually the whole town of Harpers Ferry, save for an ice-cream parlor or two and some modest houses, is part of the national park. Despite its heavy visitation, only about 300 or so folks live there. A lot more would have moved in — after all, both the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal and an important railroad reached town, connecting it to Washington, D.C. — but for its heavy forests and forbidding cliffs.
Harpers Ferry sits in a valley where two great rivers converge. One is the Potomac, which runs past Washington, far downstream to the east, en route to the Chesapeake Bay.
The other river is just as important. Ever hear of the Shenandoah Valley? Its river starts in the Blue Ridge Mountains and meanders down to its meeting point with the Potomac right in town.
Lots of famous people besides John Brown and Robert E. Lee passed through there. The nation’s first president, George Washington, surveyed it and proposed building the very arsenal that Brown one day attacked. Legendary southern generals “Stonewall” Jackson and “Jeb” Stuart fought Civil War battles there. So did Ulysses S. Grant, the man who would one day command the victorious northern forces.
And in 1906, black author and scholar W.E.B. DuBois convened a historic conference of African-American leaders at Harpers Ferry, a gathering DuBois called “one of the greatest meetings that American Negroes ever held.”
These days Harpers Ferry is a quaint little town, begging to be walked, especially when West Virginia puts on its stunning autumnal changing of the leaves. Thru-hikers pass by all the time, as Harpers Ferry is the unofficial — though not actual — midpoint of the great Appalachian Trail footpath from Georgia to Maine.
I love all but one thing about the place. And that one thing drives me crazy. Every time I visit, every time I read about the town, even now as I write, I wonder: “Who stole the possessive apostrophe from Harper’s Ferry.”
Probably only I and the descendants of Robert Harper, who founded the town and, indeed, ran a river ferry, wonder about that any more.
If you started to softly sing “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” most Americans would quickly identify the tune as “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” And they’d be right — but only up to a point.
The words to one of America’s most performed — and most bellicose — patriotic songs were composed by Boston writer Julia Ward Howe [1]during the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s.
Bellicose? Consider this verse:
“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.”
Years after the Civil War, that last line was softened to read, “Let us LIVE to make men free.”
Even so, I was always amazed, as a young man, to find “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in my Presbyterian church hymnal, next to gentler tunes such as “Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light.” (It is after all, I concede, the Battle Hymn of the Republic.) Rather than connecting it to God, I kept picturing bloody Pickett’s Charge [2]at the Battle of Gettysburg, which I don’t think was what the choirmaster had in mind.
But back to the story of the song:
During a stay in Washington, D.C., Julia Ward Howe was inspired by the tune that Union soldiers were singing as they drilled by the thousands on Pennsylvania Avenue beneath her hotel window. So she wrote words such as, “He hast loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword.”
The tune had originated as a Methodist camp song, “Say Brother, Will You Meet Me,” from which Julia Howe borrowed some of the words, such as “Glory, glory, hallelujah” in the chorus.
But those marching troops weren’t singing about God. They were singing about one man: John Brown. He was a wild-eyed abolitionist who found slavery unspeakable.
Brown and his sons murdered several slaveholders in the state of Kansas. Then, two years before war between north and south broke out, they rode east and snuck into the little town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, where the U.S. army kept a well-stocked armory.
There, the Browns and some followers raided and seized the armory and rifle-making works, hoping to use the guns for a slave rebellion. But he lingered too long. Federal soldiers captured him and, in the words of the song “John Brown’s Body” that was written about him, “they hanged him for a traitor.” Now, the song continued, “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave.”
Those are the words that the soldiers drilling below Julia Ward Howe’s window were singing — words she changed to fit the patriotic spirit that overcame her.
There’s irony in the John Brown story.
Remember, his raid on Harpers Ferry took place two years before civil war erupted. The nation was bitterly divided over slavery, but still technically united. The young lieutenant who led the relief column of federal troops that surrounded and captured John Brown was Robert E. Lee, who would later leave the U.S. Army to lead his native Virginia in the unsuccessful fight for independence by breakaway Confederate states.
When John Brown was imprisoned, there were schemes to break him out of jail, but Brown said he did not want to escape. He knew he would be a martyr for the cause of abolition. As he put it, “I am worth considerably more to hang than for any other purpose.”
Slavery was an institution, not just in the South but also in border states such as Maryland and Delaware. People didn’t have to confront it unless they chose to. But Brown made slavery front-page news. As U.S. Park Ranger Marsha Starkey once told me, “I like to compare John Brown to a maul, splitting a block of wood. He facilitated the split in the country by what he did and what he said.”
The Potomac and Shenandoah rivers converge in Harpers Ferry, but you’d have to navigate several rapids on either stream to reach the town. (Brendan Reals)
Starkey was posted at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia. WEST Virginia. The town didn’t jump over a border from Virginia. It, along with surrounding Jefferson County and 40 other upland counties where slavery had never taken root, broke away from slaveholding Virginia about a year into the fighting. At the point of Union soldiers’ bayonets, two other adjoining, slaveholding counties were also mustered into the new state — briefly called “Kanawha.”
Today, virtually the whole town of Harpers Ferry, save for an ice-cream parlor or two and some modest houses, is part of the national park. Despite its heavy visitation, only about 300 or so folks live there. A lot more would have moved in — after all, both the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal and an important railroad reached town, connecting it to Washington, D.C. — but for its heavy forests and forbidding cliffs.
Harpers Ferry sits in a valley where two great rivers converge. One is the Potomac, which runs past Washington, far downstream to the east, en route to the Chesapeake Bay.
The other river is just as important. Ever hear of the Shenandoah Valley? Its river starts in the Blue Ridge Mountains and meanders down to its meeting point with the Potomac right in town.
Lots of famous people besides John Brown and Robert E. Lee passed through there. The nation’s first president, George Washington, surveyed it and proposed building the very arsenal that Brown one day attacked. Legendary southern generals “Stonewall” Jackson and “Jeb” Stuart fought Civil War battles there. So did Ulysses S. Grant, the man who would one day command the victorious northern forces.
And in 1906, black author and scholar W.E.B. DuBois convened a historic conference of African-American leaders at Harpers Ferry, a gathering DuBois called “one of the greatest meetings that American Negroes ever held.”
Harpers Ferry is so small, even with its national park visitorship, that you can practically step right into the woods at the edge of town. (Carol M. Highsmith)
These days Harpers Ferry is a quaint little town, begging to be walked, especially when West Virginia puts on its stunning autumnal changing of the leaves. Thru-hikers pass by all the time, as Harpers Ferry is the unofficial — though not actual — midpoint of the great Appalachian Trail footpath from Georgia to Maine.
I love all but one thing about the place. And that one thing drives me crazy. Every time I visit, every time I read about the town, even now as I write, I wonder: “Who stole the possessive apostrophe from Harper’s Ferry.”
Probably only I and the descendants of Robert Harper, who founded the town and, indeed, ran a river ferry, wonder about that any more.
Ted's Wild Words
These are a few words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word that you'd like me to explain, just ask!
Maul. As a noun, a maul is a tool with a long handle and a sharp, pointed blade that’s heavier and wider than that of an axe. It’s used to split logs rather than just lop off branches or chop holes in wood. The verb form is more familiar. To maul something or someone is to beat or injure something badly.
