2019 marks 200th anniversary of birth of ‘Battle Hymn’ writer
By Joanne Sloan
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! / Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! / Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! / His truth is marching on.”
Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) — writer, abolitionist and suffragist — wrote the patriotic classic “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
This year marks the 200th anniversary of her birth.
Hymn legacy
She was born on May 27, 1819, to Samuel and Julia Ward. Her father was a prominent New York City banker. Her mother died when she was five years old.
In 1843, Howe toured the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts. She met and soon married the school’s founder Samuel Howe, 18 years her senior. They had six children.
Howe was an abolitionist who worked for freeing the slaves, and she was an active suffragist who founded the New England Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association.
Although a prolific writer her legacy is the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
In November 1861 she met Abraham Lincoln at the White House. Afterwards she, her husband and her pastor watched a public review of troops at Upton Hill, Virginia.
They heard soldiers singing “John Brown’s Body,” a popular song among the troops. Howe’s pastor suggested she use composer William Steffe’s music and write new lyrics for the soldiers’ song.
At the Willard Hotel while in Washington, she awoke early on Nov. 19, 1861.
“The long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind,” she later recalled.
After thinking out all the stanzas she sprang from her bed and “scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.”
The “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was first published on the front page of The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862.
Howe died of pneumonia Oct. 17, 1910, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
At her memorial service around 4,000 people sang the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
A national song
During the 20th Century the song became a national one: Northern and Southern soldiers sang it together during World War I and evangelists Billy Sunday and Billy Graham helped popularize it during their crusades.
The song served as the finale of the 9/11 Memorial service at Washington National Cathedral.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Joanne Sloan, a member of First Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa, has been a published writer of articles and books for 30 years. She has a bachelor’s degree double majoring in history and English from East Texas State University (now Texas A&M–Commerce) and a master’s degree specializing in English from the University of Arkansas (1978).
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