The Aquidneck Patriot

“The Battle Hymn,” was written in the first year of our first Civil War (1861), and as I fear we now stand on the brink of our second, it is time we take up once again these divine lyrics, commit them to memory, and sing them proudly to steel our nerves for the battle ahead.

The author was Julia Ward Howe. This is of great personal significance to me because I live on land that she and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, once owned. She passed away in 1910, aged 91, less than a mile from here. I believe her spirit is still here on Aquidneck Island.

Their daughter, Florence Howe Hall, also a writer, wrote the following excerpt on the nearly mythological way that the “Battle Hymn” came to be written:

“It was in December, 1861, that Mrs. Howe, in company with her husband... visited Washington, itself almost in the condition of an armed camp. On their journey thither ‘the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps’ gleamed in the darkness, the railroad being patrolled by pickets.

“Mrs. Howe has told of the martial sights and sounds in the national capital, and of her drive to a distance of several miles from the city to see a review of our troops. An attack of the enemy interrupted the program,

“and the return drive was made through files of soldiers, who occupied almost the entire road. To beguile the tedium of their slow progress, Mrs. Howe and her friends sang army songs, among others, ‘John Brown’s Body.’ This seemed to please the soldiers...

“who themselves took up the strain, in the interval crying, ‘Good for you!’ Our poet had often wished to write words to be sung to this tune, and now, indeed, had she ‘read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel.’

“She slept quietly that night; but waking before dawn, found herself weaving together the lines of a poem, capable of being sung to the ‘John Brown’ tune. Line after line, and verse after verse fell into place,

“and Mrs. Howe, fearing that they would fade from her mind, sprang out of bed, and in the gray half-light hastily wrote down her verses, went back to bed and fell asleep again.”

Now, fellow patriots, I present to you the five divinely-inspired verses she wrote that morning and would publish in the February 1862 issue of The Atlantic:

1. “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.

2. “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.

3. “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.’

4. “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.

5. “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.”

When performed musically, it is typically shortened to three verses (unfortunately), each of which being followed by a chorus of “Glory, glory, Hallelujah,” etc. One of my goals of this thread is to bring the full five verses back to our collective memory.

“His truth is marching on.” Our current battle is one of truth vs. the lies of the corrupt media & political establishment. The patriots are fighting for truth, and the vast majority do so in the belief that behind the truth stands God.

“He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat.” The synchronicity of this line with our present moment is chilling. Trump is the great trumpet, and he shall never call retreat.

“Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel.” There is an overwhelming sense among patriots that we are reaching a crescendo of the battle on Earth between good and evil. The serpent represents that which is false, and it will be crushed by the power of truth.

“I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps.” Today’s watch-fires are attended digitally, on social media, by circling camps of patriots on guard against the lies of corrupt media and the deep state.

Fellow patriots, I hope you now see how as we reach this crescendo, these parallels to the composition of the “Battle Hymn” transcend mere coincidence. The divine guidance that first birthed and then saved this great republic now stands to save it once again.