The History Behind 'Battle Hymn Of The Republic'.

"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."

-"The Battle Hymn of the Republic",
Julia Ward Howe, February, 1862.

When English-speaking people worldwide want to sing a song about God's goodness overcoming evil, they often sing "Onward, Christian Soldiers". Americans often sing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (or just "Battle Hymn of the Republic", as it is called now). And it has an interesting story.

The song and above stanza were inspired by a touching scene Howe saw when she visited a Union camp outside Washington, DC in late 1861. Men huddled around a campfire singing the abolitionist song "John Brown's Body". (Howe's husband Samuel Gridley Howe helped financed the Secret Six, which led to John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry and subsequent execution for treason in the South.) She was immediately inspired to write the song, using that melody.

"Battle Hymn of the Republic" was the official song of the Union cause, and the marching song too. For the South, songs like "The Bonnie Blue Flag" were their patriot song. And the minstrel song "Dixie" was their marching song. "Dixie" was written by Daniel Decatur Emmett in 1859 (although Emmett never supported the South, and didn't like the song being used for this purpose). "Dixie" was also Abraham Lincoln's favorite song, he told people because it cheered him up.

The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is full of references, some of them violent, to the books of Isaiah and Revelation in the Bible. The second to last line was changed from "As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free" to "let us live to make men free" for this reason.

As I said, many people believed that God was on the side of the Union during the war, and that is why we won. Many people also believe Lincoln was sent by God to complete this task. He told people he somehow knew from childhood that he would be president. That is why Mary Todd married him, when he told her this. He also was plagued by dreams of destiny. One about his death, and some of being in a fast-moving boat just before some important event was about to happen during the war.