Battle Hymn of the Republic - History and Words
About the "Battle Hymn of the Republic": First Published Version | Manuscript version | Later Versions
Later Versions of the Battle Hymn of the Republic
Julia Ward Howe, about 1865
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The Battle Hymn has been sung on many public occasions, including at the funeral of Robert F. Kennedy and at the service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., after the September 11, 2001, attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon.
It is common in Protestant hymnals, but there you're likely to see several variations on the words as first published or as first written by Julia Ward Howe in the 1860s. In the grand tradition of assembling new hymnals to meet a religious group's changing needs, words are changed to make the words more singable, to drop words that are not common in later vocabulary, or to bring the words more in line with that religious group's theology.
Intimations of Julia Ward Howe's 19th century Unitarian Christianity were changed by more orthodox Protestant groups to reflect less her universalistic theology. The 1993 Unitarian Universalist hymn book has dropped the Battle Hymn entirely while including Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation as a unison reading.
Most commonly, the line referring to the commitment of soldiers in the Civil War "As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free" has been changed to "As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free."
In this example, some hymnals use a verse from Howe's original manuscript which was not in the first published version. The word "sucour" has been changed to "honor" in a verse from her original. The "soul of Time" has been changed to "soul of wrong." Pronouns used for God have been capitalized.
Later version:
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave;
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of wrong His slave,
Our God is marching on.
As first written:
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, he is sucour to the brave,
So the world shall be his footstool, and the soul of Time his slave,
Our God is marching on.
"Battle Hymn of the Republic"
- First Published Version
- Manuscript Version
- You are here--> Later Versions
Julia Ward Howe
- About Julia Ward Howe - includes bibliography
- Writing the Battle Hymn
- Beyond the Battle Hymn
- Julia Ward Howe Quotations
- Julia Ward Howe: Index to Articles
