Battle Hymn of the Republic explained

"Battle Hymn of the Republic"
Author:Julia Ward Howe
Lyrics Date:1861
Composer:William Steffe, 1856; arranged by James E. Greenleaf, C. S. Hall, and C. B. Marsh
Music Date:1861
Sound:"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" US Air Force Band.ogg
Sound Title:"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" as performed by the United States Air Force Band

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

Howe adapted her song from the soldiers' song "John Brown's Body" in November 1861, and first published it in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. In contrast to the lyrics of the soldiers’ song, her version links the Union cause with God's vengeance at the Day of Judgment (through allusions to biblical passages such as, Revelation 19 and).

Julia Ward Howe was married to Samuel Gridley Howe, a scholar in education of the blind. Both Samuel and Julia were also active leaders in anti-slavery politics and strong supporters of the Union. Samuel was a member of the Secret Six, the group who funded John Brown's work.[1]

History

"Oh! Brothers"

The tune and some of the lyrics of "John Brown’s Body" came from a much older folk hymn called "Say, Brothers will you Meet Us", also known as "Glory Hallelujah", which has been developed in the oral hymn tradition of revivalist camp meetings of the late 1700s, though it was first published 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?"[2] 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 "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.[3]

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,[4] 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".[5] 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!"[6]

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.[7] [8]

First published version

* Some 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."[9] [10]

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

Type:single
Artist:Mormon Tabernacle Choir
B-Side:The Lord's Prayer
Released:1959
Recorded:1959
Genre:Choral
Length:3:07
Label:Columbia

Influence

Popularity and widespread use

In the years since the Civil War, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" has been used frequently as an American patriotic song.[14]

Cultural influences

The lyrics of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" appear in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s sermons and speeches, most notably in his speech "How Long, Not Long" from the steps of the Alabama State Capitol building on March 25, 1965, after the successful Selma to Montgomery march, and in his final sermon "I've Been to the Mountaintop", delivered in Memphis, Tennessee on the evening of April 3, 1968, the night before his assassination. In fact, the latter sermon, King's last public words, ends with the first lyrics of the "Battle Hymn": "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

Bishop Michael B. Curry of North Carolina, after his election as the first African American Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, delivered a sermon to the Church's General Convention on July 3, 2015, in which the lyrics of the "Battle Hymn" framed the message of God's love. After proclaiming "Glory, glory, hallelujah, His truth is marching on", a letter from President Barack Obama was read, congratulating Bishop Curry on his historic election.[15] Curry is known for quoting the "Battle Hymn" during his sermons.

The inscription "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord" is written at the feet of the sculpture of the fallen soldier at the American Cemetery in Normandy, France.

The tune has played a role in many movies where patriotic music has been required, including the 1970 World War II war comedy Kelly's Heroes, and the 1999 sci-fi western Wild Wild West. Words from the first verse gave John Steinbeck's wife Carol Steinbeck the title of his 1939 masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath.[16] The title of John Updike's In the Beauty of the Lilies also came from this song, as did Terrible Swift Sword and Never Call Retreat, two volumes in Bruce Catton's Centennial History of the Civil War. Terrible Swift Sword is also the name of a board wargame simulating the Battle of Gettysburg.[17]

Words from the second last line of the last verse are paraphrased in Leonard Cohen's song "Steer Your Way".[18] It was originally published as a poem in The New Yorker magazine.[19] "As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free" becomes "As He died to make men holy, let us die to make things cheap".

The theme song to the 2021 apocalyptic movie Don't Look Up, sung by Bon Iver, also makes reference to "what mine eyes have seen".

In association with football/soccer

See main article: Glory Glory (football chant). The refrain "Glory, glory, hallelujah!" has been adopted by fans of a number of sporting teams, most notably in the English and Scottish Premier Leagues. The popular use of the tune by Tottenham Hotspur can be traced to September 1961 during the 1961–62 European Cup. Their first opponents in the competition were the Polish side Górnik Zabrze, and the Polish press described the Spurs team as "no angels" due to their rough tackling. In the return leg at White Hart Lane, some fans then wore angel costumes at the match holding placards with slogans such as "Glory be to shining White Hart Lane", and the crowded started singing the refrain "Glory, glory, hallelujah" as Spurs beat the Poles 8–1, starting the tradition at Tottenham.[20] It was released as the B-side to "Ossie's Dream" for the 1981 Cup Final.

The theme was then picked up by Hibernian, with Hector Nicol's release of the track "Glory, glory to the Hibees" in 1963.[21] [22] "Glory, Glory Leeds United" was a popular chant during Leeds' 1970 FA Cup run. Manchester United fans picked it up as "Glory, Glory Man United" during the 1983 FA Cup Final. As a result of its popularity with these and other British teams, it has spread internationally and to other sporting codes. An example of its reach is its popularity with fans of the Australian Rugby League team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs (Glory, Glory to South Sydney) and to A-League team Perth Glory. Brighton fans celebrate their 1970s legend by singing "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, he played for Brighton and Hove Albion and his name is Peter Ward".

Other songs set to this tune

Some songs make use of both the melody and elements of the lyrics of "Battle Hymn of the Republic", either in tribute or as a parody:

Other songs simply use the melody, i.e. the melody of "John Brown's Body", with no lyrical connection to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic":

Other settings of the text

Irish composer Ina Boyle set the text for solo soprano, mixed choir and orchestra; she completed her version in 1918.[43] The British Methodist Hymn Book used in the mid 20th century had Walford Davies's Vision as the first tune, and the Battle Hymn as the second tune.[44]

The progressive metal band Dream Theater utilise the lyrics of the Battle Hymn of the Republic at the end of their song "In the Name of God", the final song on their 2003 album Train of Thought.

See also

References

Sources

Further reading

External links

Sheet music

Audio

Notes and References

  1. Reynolds, David S. "John Brown Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights." Vintage Books, pp. 209–215.
  2. Book: The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On. John . Stauffer . Benjamin. Soskis. Oxford University Press. 2013. 9780199339587.
  3. Book: Cutler, Frederick Morse . The 55th artillery (CAC) in the American expeditionary forces, France, 1918 . Commonwealth Press . Worcester, Massachusetts . 1920 . 261ff . Google Books.
  4. Williams, Gary. Hungry Heart: The Literary Emergence of Julia Ward Howe. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999: 208.
  5. . See also footnote in To-Day, 1885 (v.3, February), p.88
  6. Hall, Roger L. New England Songster. PineTree Press, 1997.
  7. Howe. Julia Ward. The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The Atlantic Monthly. February 1862. 9. 52. 10. April 26, 2015.
  8. Stossel. Sage. The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The Atlantic Monthly. September 2001. April 26, 2015.
  9. Web site: LDS Hymns #60 . Hymns . Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints . 23 July 2020.
  10. Book: Methodist Conference. Methodist Conference Office. The Methodist hymn-book with tunes. London. 1933. Hymn number 260.
  11. Web site: Battle Hymn of the Republic (original version). American music preservation . 2010-07-02.
  12. Book: Sanders, Coyne Steven. 1990. Rainbow's End: The Judy Garland Show. Zebra Books. 0-8217-3708-2.
  13. News: Johnson. Haynes. Jules. Witcover. LBJ Buried in Beloved Texas Hills. The Washington Post. A1. January 26, 1973. Haynes Johnson. Jules Witcover.
  14. Web site: Civil War Music: The Battle Hymn of the Republic . Civilwar.org . October 17, 1910 . 2012-08-05 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120816060205/http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/on-the-homefront/culture/music/the-battle-hymn-of-the-republic/the-battle-hymn-of-the.html . August 16, 2012 .
  15. Web site: Video: Presiding Bishop-elect Michael Curry preaches at General Convention Closing Eucharist . July 3, 2015.
  16. Book: DeMott, Robert . Robert DeMott's Introduction to The Grapes of Wrath . 1992. Viking Penguin . USA. 0-14-018640-9 . xviii .
  17. Web site: Terrible Swift Sword: The Battle of Gettysburg – Board Game . BoardGameGeek . 2012-08-05.
  18. "You Want It Darker" Columbia Records, released Oct. 21, 2016
  19. Steer Your Way . The New Yorker.
  20. Web site: The Glory Glory Nights: The Official Story of Tottenham Hotspur in Europe . Martin . Cloake . December 12, 2012.
  21. Web site: Hector Nicol with the Kelvin Country Dance Band – Glory Glory To The Hi-Bees (Hibernian Supporters Song) (Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Single) – Discogs . . 22 March 2019.
  22. Web site: Hector Nicol – Discography & Songs – Discogs . . 22 March 2019.
  23. Walls, "Marching Song", Arkansas Historical Quarterly (Winter 2007), 401–402.
  24. News: Where the Sidewalk Begins . Dirda . Michael . November 6, 1988 . 16 . The Washington Post .
  25. Web site: Gloryland 1994 World Cup Song . https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211102/9lyNR0UMVic. 2021-11-02 . live. YouTube . 2010-09-28.
  26. Web site: Rabbitohs Club Song . .
  27. Web site: Jesus Can't Go Hashing Hash Song . .
  28. Web site: Informationen zum Thema Shamrocks Rugby Will County Rugby Chicago Rugby Manhattan Rugby . shamrockrfc.com . March 30, 2018 . March 30, 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180330080109/http://www.shamrockrfc.com/rugby-songs.html .
  29. News: Gloria doesn't mind 'labandera' tag . May 5, 2001 . September 18, 2020 . . Philstar Global Corp..
  30. Web site: Vanzi . Sol Jose . PHNE: Business and Economy . www.newsflash.org . 4 July 2020.
  31. Web site: Solidarity Forever: Melody – 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' . William . Steffe . 1862 . Musica net . 2010-07-02.
  32. Uppo-Nalle (1991), Suomen kansallisfilmografia (2004), on ELONET, National Audiovisual Archive and the Finnish Board of Film Classification, Web site: ELONET - Uppo-Nalle - Muut tiedot . 2014-09-14 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140914181159/http://79.141.150.54/title/ek2xf3/muut . September 14, 2014 .
  33. Web site: Varski Varjola – Suomi tekee kohta maalin (2011) . https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211102/nDRcEH9kHOA. 2021-11-02 . live. March 14, 2011 . YouTube.
  34. Web site: Dagens visa; 1999 juli 7 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210613085236/https://minata.tripod.com/visa_7_jul.html . 2021-06-13 . live . July 7, 1999 . 2023-05-11.
  35. Web site: Céline Dion chante noël . 2020-11-24 . www.celinedion.com.
  36. Web site: Principia Discordia – Page 11. Principia Discordia.
  37. Web site: Aarni – The Battle Hymn Of Eristocracy . https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211102/c6EVPv_vpWU. 2021-11-02 . live. October 23, 2011 . YouTube.
  38. Web site: ごんべさんの赤ちゃん - (Gonbei-san no aka-chan) . Mama Lisa's World: Children's Songs and Rhymes from Around the World . 11 June 2024.
  39. Web site: Oil Thigh . Queen's online encyclopedia . Queen's Webmaster . 16 October 2020.
  40. Web site: KEE 114 Sendah Jumpa Kita Wari Raya E . GBKP KM 8 . 12 April 2022 . id.
  41. Web site: NUNGA JUMPANG MUSE ARI PESTA (BE 57) . Alkitab by Sabda . 12 April 2022.
  42. Web site: SUDAH TIBA HARI RAYA YANG KUDUS (BN 57) . Alkitab by Sabda . 12 April 2022.
  43. Web site: Works with Orchestra. December 14, 2016.
  44. Book: Methodist Conference. Methodist Conference Office. The Methodist hymn-book with tunes. London. 1933. Number 260.