|
|
Question
#1249. Kylee
asks:
That patriotic song did Julia Ward Howe write lyrics to?
|
Odonnell
|
Odonnell says:
Julia Ward Howe: Writing the U.S. Battle Hymn of the Republic
As a result of their voluntary work with the Sanitary Commission, in 1862 President Lincoln invited Samuel and Julia Howe to Washington. The Howes visited a Union Army camp in Virginia across the Potomac. There, they heard the men singing the song which had been sung by both North and South, one in admiration of John Brown, one in celebration of his death: 'John Brown's body lies a'mouldering in his grave.' A clergyman in the party, James Freeman Clarke, who knew of Julia's published poems, urged her to write a new song for the war effort to replace 'John Brown's Body.' She described the events later: 'I replied that I had often wished to do so. In spite of the excitement of the day I went to bed and slept as usual, but 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 searched for an old sheet of paper and an old stub of a pen which I had had the night before, and began to scrawl the lines almost without looking, as I learned to do by often scratching down verses in the darkened room when my little children were sleeping. Having completed this, I lay down again and fell asleep, but not before feeling that something of importance had happened to me.' The result was a poem, published first in February 1862 in the Atlantic Monthly, and called 'Battle Hymn of the Republic.' The poem was quickly put to the tune that had been used for 'John Brown's Body.'
Fri Apr 14 11:27:30 CDT 2000
(Reposted to edit characters - McG)
Apr 13 02, 2:03 AM
|
|
Fun Trivia | 
Quizzes | 
Games
| 
People | 
Services | 
Help | 
Me
Sign up for your FREE FunTrivia ID! Compete,
play free games, and meet people! Click here...
Have a question that you want answered? Are you able to answer questions from other FunTrivia guests? Then you have come to the right
place!