The Battle Hymn of the Republic
In November of 1861, the same year the Civil War started, an established poet named Julia Ward Howe and her husband were visiting Washington DC when they heard Union troops singing, “John Brown’s Body.” This was a marching song about the abolitionist John Brown. Julia’s Husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, was part of the Secret Six, a group that provided financial and logistical support to John Brown’s abolitionist cause.
While they were listening to the troops sing, a preacher was standing with Howe and her husband and told Howe that she should write new lyrics for the catchy tune. Little did the preacher know that Howe had often wanted to do so. In fact, Howe wrote:
I… awoke the next morning 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. I… began to scrawl the lines almost without looking…. Having completed this, I lay down again and fell asleep, but not before feeling that something of importance had happened to me.”
What Howe referred to as “something of importance” ended up becoming The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Mine eyes have 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.
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.”
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.
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.
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic was adopted by Union Soldiers as an anthem and was seen by many as a very bold stance. Why? Because it suggested that God was on the side of the Union.
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.
They were right — God was on their side, because God cares about freedom. Galatians 5:13 says, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.” And in 2 Corinthians 3:17 it says, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” However the biggest testament to God’s value of freedom is the price He was willing to pay for the freedom of our souls.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
Our God is marching on.
As we celebrate freedom this month, let us consider Julia Howe’s words and remember that the idea that freedom belongs to everyone is a result of the sacrifice Jesus made for all mankind to be free from the bondage of sin through His death and resurrection. Let us also ponder on the reality of the power of our awesome God marching with us as an individual and as a people when we pursue the cause He has placed in our hearts.
Image by Johannes Plenio @jplenio and used by permission via Unsplash