Before the household woke
The family account describes Howe writing in the dim light, using a habit developed when she wrote at night without waking her children. The manuscript was the result of that remembered morning.
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PEOPLE WORTH GETTING TO KNOW
Julia Ward Howe
Writer, abolitionist, and advocate for women’s rights
In November 1861, Julia Ward Howe returned from a troop review near Washington with companions who sang “John Brown’s Body.” James Freeman Clarke suggested that she write new words for the tune. Her family’s biography recounts what followed: before dawn, the verses came to her, and she rose to write them down before they vanished.
The words appeared in the February 1862 Atlantic. The hymn moved from a private act of writing into camps, churches, public meetings, and the voices of people who understood freedom as something worth a life.
A CLOSER LOOK
The story behind it.
A tune heard among soldiers, words written before dawn, and a hymn that traveled far beyond its author.
The words keep traveling
More than a century later, Martin Luther King Jr. closed his Mountaintop speech with the hymn’s opening line. The song joins two moments already central to this collection.
A GOOD PLACE TO BEGIN
Start here.
Song
Battle Hymn of the Republic
Words by Julia Ward Howe · published 1862
A marching tune becomes a vision of judgment, sacrifice, and freedom.
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Introductions are grounded in the sources below. Collection notes and reading prompts provide an editorial starting point; personal opinions are identified in the collection’s content.
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