# The Story of the Battle Hymn of the Republic/Chapter 9

MY mother's natural mode of expressing herself was by poetry rather than by prose. She wrote verses from her earliest years up to the time of her death. It is true that some of her best work took the form of prose in her essays, lectures, and speeches, yet whenever her feelings were deeply moved she turned to verse as the fittest vehicle for her use.
We have seen that she began to write poems protesting against human slavery at an early period of her career. Thus her first published ​"On the Death of the Slave Lewis." In Words for the Hour we find several poems dealing with slavery, the struggle in Kansas, the attack on Sumner, and kindred subjects. The titles of these and some quotations from them are given in Chapter I. The verses on "Tremont Temple" contain tributes to Sumner and Frederick Douglass, the negro orator. The first two are as follows: volume, Passion Flowers (1853), contained verses
When the Civil War broke out, she poured forth the feelings that so deeply moved her in a number of poems. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is the best known of these, as it deserves to be. The others, however, while varying as to merit, show the same patriotism, indignation against wrong, and elevation of spirit. The woman's tenderness of heart breathes through them, too, as in the story of the dying soldier:
It will be remembered that the first blood shed in the Civil War was in Baltimore. There the Massachusetts troops, while on their way to defend the national capital, were attacked by "Plug-Uglies" and several soldiers were killed. My mother thus describes the funeral in Boston:
​"We were present when these bodies were received at King's Chapel burial-ground, and could easily see how deeply the Governor was moved at the sad sight of the coffins draped with the national flag. This occasion drew from me the poem:
(We give the first two of the six verses.)
Of her "Poems of the War" "The Flag" ranks second in popular esteem and has a place in many anthologies. She thus describes the circumstances under which it was composed:
"Even in gay Newport there were sad reverberations of the strife. I shall never forget an afternoon on which I drove into town with my son, by this time a lad of fourteen, and found the main street lined with carriages, and the carriages filled with white-faced people, intent on I knew not what. Meeting a friend, I asked: 'Why are these people here? What are they waiting for and why do they look as they do?'
"'They are waiting for the mail. Don't you know that we have had a dreadful reverse?' Alas! this was the second battle of Bull Run. I have ​made some record of it in a poem entitled 'The Flag,' which I dare mention here because Mr. Emerson, on hearing it, said to me, 'I like the architecture of that poem.'"
The opening verse is as follows:
were inspired by this behavior of "The Secesh," as we then called them. Some of these persons, although belonging to good society, had the bad taste to boast in our presence of how the South was going to "whip" the North. At a certain picnic among the Paradise Rocks, my mother resolved to give these people a lesson in patriotism. One of our number, a quiet, elderly lady, was selected to act as America, the queen of the occasion. She was crowned with flowers, and we all saluted her with patriotic songs.
"The First Martyr" tells the story of a visit to the wife of John Brown before the latter's execution:
The prize which had been offered for the national song was never awarded, if I remember aright, and Mr. Dresel decided to use the tune he had composed, for the "Army Hymn" of Oliver Wendell Holmes. This was "superbly sung by L. C. Campbell, assisted by the choir and band" at the opening exercises of the Great Metropolitan Fair held in New York during the Civil War, for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission.
"Our Country" thus lost its musical setting, to my mother's regret.
The news of Lincoln's assassination dealt a stunning blow to our people. The rejoicings over the end of the Civil War were suddenly changed to deep sorrow, indignation, and fear. How widely the conspiracy spread we did not know. It will be remembered that other officers of the Federal Government were attacked. My mother wrote that nothing since the death of her little boy had given her so much personal pain. As usual, she sought relief for her feelings in verse. "The Parricide," written on the day of Lincoln's funeral, expresses her love and reverence for the great man, her horror of the "Fair assassin, murder—white," whom she bids:
On July 21, 1865, Harvard University held memorial exercises in honor of her sons who had given their lives for their country. The living graduates of that day numbered only twenty-four hundred, including the aged, sick, and absent. Of these more than five hundred went out to fight in behalf of the Union, many of them to return no more. Their names may be seen engraved on the ​marble tablets of Memorial Hall, Cambridge, a daily lesson in patriotism to the undergraduates who frequent it. Full of fun and nonsense as the latter are, they will permit no disrespect to the memory of the heroes of the Civil War. If visitors enter without removing their hats, an instant clamor arises, forcing them to do so.
On this Commencement day of 1865 a notable assemblage gathered at Harvard. In addition to other distinguished people there were present, as Governor Andrew said in his address, a "cloud of living witnesses who have come back laden with glory from the fields where their comrades fell." Phillips Brooks made a prayer, Ralph Waldo Emerson and others spoke. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Rev. Charles T. Brooks, James Russell Lowell, his brother Robert, John S. Dwight, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe contributed poems. The verses of the latter were read by her friend, Mr. Samuel Eliot. The opening ones are as follows:
Another of her war poems speaks in the name of the sons of the old university. When it was published in the newspapers, a careless typesetter made some errors in setting it up. I remember how troubled she was when the line
was printed "beast" of Treason.
We give a single verse of the "Harvard Student's Song":
The other "Poems of the War" published in Later Lyrics are entitled "Requital," "The Question," "One and Many," "Hymn for a Spring ​Festival," "The Jeweller's Shop in War-time," and "The Battle Eucharist."
In these we see how deeply the writer's soul was oppressed by the sorrow of the war and the horrors of the battle-field. We see, too, how it turned ever for comfort and encouragement to the Cross and to the Lord of Hosts.
* ↑ Mr. Howells writes in his Literary Boston Thirty Years Ago: "I heard Mrs. Howe speak in public and it seemed to me that she made one of the best speeches I had ever heard."
* ↑ Reminiscences, p. 261.
* ↑ Reminiscences, p. 261.
* ↑ Samuel Gridley Howe, Jr., who died in May, 1863, aged three and a half years.