After the unsuccessful assassination attempt of former president Donald J. Trump on July 13, 2024, we noticed and felt a much welcomed surge of patriotism among Americans.
One stirring, patriotic American song that dates back to the American Civil War is the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
In November of 1861, Julia Ward Howe, the daughter of a well-to-do New York City banker, was touring Union army camps near Washington, D.C. with Reverend James Freeman Clarke and with her husband, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, who was a member of President Lincoln’s Military Sanitary Commission.
During the course of their camp visit, the group began to sing some of the currently popular war songs, among them “John Brown’s Body.” In one of those rare flashes of inspiration that leave their mark on the history of a nation, Reverend Clarke was moved to suggest that Mrs. Howe pen new lyrics to the familiar tune. She replied that she had often thought of doing just exactly that.
The following morning, as Mrs. Howe later described it, she “awoke…in the gray of the early dawn, and to my astonishment found that the wished-for lines were arranging themselves in my brain. I lay quite still until the last verse had completed itself in my thoughts, then hastily arose, saying to myself, ‘I shall lose this if I don’t write it down immediately.'”
The Battle Hymn of the Republic Lyrics
Mine eyes hath seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.
I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.
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;
While God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave;
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of wrong His slave,
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.
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IN GOD WE TRUST
Loralyn ‘Dodie’ & Jack Dennis
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Clever Journeys 
When I was in a public elementary school overflowing with kids, we often sang “Battle Hymn of the Republic” during music class and for programs in three or four part harmony. We sang with fervor because we knew what it meant. After all, we practiced diving under our desks and curling up with our hands covering our heads in anticipation of an atomic bomb drop.
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Fight! Fight! Fight!
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I have always loved this song; thanks for giving us all the verses! Does anybody remember the singing of it along the train tracks as RFK’s body was being taken down to be buried? Or maybe I was just the one singing it during that time, but I remember it as the crowds singing.
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I do remember that.
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Thank God, I wasn’t hallucinating. No One that I have asked remembers that, and it’s always stuck with me. So moving, it’s an inspired song and I love the story, showing that it is. Thanks!
‘
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I must have been watching the same channel. I also recall listening to talk radio throughout the night to find out if the shot was fatal. I never paid much attention to talk radio until then.
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I wonder how many other kids out age were glued to all the information they could get? It was just too much, after JFK and MLK. Devastating.
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It changed us, that is for certain. Then I would think about WWII & WWI families went through.
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A certain entertainer sang this song from 1975 onwards, I am not American,
but love the song, stirs the heart, something that is missing now,
Thank you Jack and Dodie 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
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Thank you. We so appreciate your readership & enjoy your comments.
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