very willing to repeat it, under suitable circumstances. She was asked
to do so at all times and seasons and in all sorts of places. People
who requested her to recite her war lyric at the close of a lecture did
not realize the fatigue that it entailed upon a person no longer young
and already weary with speaking. Yet I doubt if she ever refused, when
it was possible for her to comply with the request. Not long before her
death, some ladies, calling upon her at her summer home near Newport,
begged her to recite then and there the “Battle Hymn.” She was loth to
do so, feeling the solemn words were not at all in keeping with the
light and pleasant chat of a morning visit. As one of the callers was
frankly an old lady, my mother at length consented. According to her
custom when asked to recite under such circumstances, she withdrew for
a few minutes before beginning.
There are thousands of people now living, I suppose, who have heard
the author’s recitation of the “Battle Hymn.” Yet because there are
thousands who never did hear it, and because these things slip so
easily out of mind, it is well to give some description of it “_Lest we
forget_.”
My mother repeated the verses of the hymn simply, yet with a solemnity
that was all the more impressive because there was no effort at
elocutionary or dramatic effect. Yet there was sufficient variety in
the recitation to avoid any approach to monotony. Thus she repeated the
lines
“O be swift, my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant, my feet!”
with uplifted hands, a downward glance at her feet, and voice slightly
raised. Her distinct enunciation and the clear, musical tones of a
voice that never grew old, made the words audible even in a large
auditorium.
Her deeply serious manner, corresponding so well as it did with the
solemn, prophetic words of the “Battle Hymn,” made the recitation very
impressive.
We saw before us the woman who had been privileged to speak the word
for the hour, in the dark days of her country’s history. It was like
seeing some priestess of old delivering the sacred oracle to her
people. Though the message was repeated so many times, it never lost
its power to stir the souls of those who heard it.
It should be said that the habit of speaking very carefully, my mother
formed early in life. Having a brother who stammered, she was very
anxious to avoid that defect of speech. The beauty of her voice was due
to its careful training in the Italian school of singing in her youth.
Doubtless the habit of public speaking also tended to preserve it.
She occasionally repeated “The Flag,” a more dramatic and more personal
poem than the “Battle Hymn.” Her rendering of it, accordingly, was more
dramatic.
On public occasions my mother was often introduced as “The author of
‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic.’” Sometimes the introducer would, by
mistake, substitute the name of another war song, good of its kind,
but hardly to be compared with my mother’s hymn. She used to say,
rather plaintively, that Miss Susan B. Anthony (the well-known suffrage
leader) _would_ mix up the two songs, introducing her as “_The author
of the ‘Battle Cry of Freedom.’_”
It was a joy to her to be associated with the “Battle Hymn,” yet she
sometimes grieved a little because this so greatly overshadowed all her
other literary productions. She had labored long and earnestly with
pen and voice, writing both prose and poetry which won commendation
from her comrades in the world of letters. Hence she was glad to be
remembered as the author, not only of her war lyric, but of other
compositions as well.
My mother was asked to repeat this more and more often as its fame
increased and as she herself became ever dearer to her countrymen. As
early as 1865 we find that she was urged to recite it at Newport at
the close of her lecture in Mr. Richard Hunt’s studio. Among those in
the audience was George Bancroft, the historian, a prominent figure
in Newport society of the olden days. Mr. Bancroft had held various
offices under the Federal Government, that of Secretary of the Navy
among others. When the Civil War broke out there was a good deal of
secession feeling among the summer residents of the watering-place, but
Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft were steadfastly loyal to the Union.
It is interesting to note that among the many places where its author
recited the “Battle Hymn,” at least one city in the heart of the South
is included. Mrs. Howe spent the winter of 1884-85 in New Orleans,
having been invited to preside over the woman’s department of the
exposition held there in that year.
The experience involved much hard work, but also much pleasure. She
made many friends in the Crescent City, whither she and I returned
eleven years later for a congress of the Association for the
Advancement of Women. We were the guests of her old friend, Mrs. King,
the mother of Grace King, the novelist, and were entertained by mother
and daughters with charming hospitality.
I confess that it surprised me when, at an afternoon reception in the
King drawing-room, my mother was asked to repeat the “Battle Hymn,” and
did so. This showed us how much the old ill-feeling between North and
South had died out. It demonstrated also the universal and therefore
non-sectional quality of the poem, of which more will be said in the
following chapter.
The “Battle Hymn” may be called universal in still another sense, since
it appeals to men and women of all religious creeds. When Mrs. Howe was
especially requested to recite it before a council of Jewish women,
it gave her “an unexpected thrill of satisfaction.” She was warmly
received and welcomed, but felt some anxiety lest the verse beginning
“In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea” might
disturb her hearers. The president assured her, however, that there
was nothing in it to hurt their feelings.
My mother was so intimately associated with the woman movement that she
was called upon to repeat her war lyric before many feminine audiences.
We have spoken of her interest in women’s clubs. She was also
interested in the patriotic societies, being a member of the D. A. R.
and of the Colonial Dames of Rhode Island. One of the Boston chapters
of the former is named in honor of the Old South Meeting-house, a
venerated landmark of the city. When the congregation left their old
place of worship and moved to the Back Bay, it required a tremendous
effort on the part of the women of Boston to raise the necessary funds
and to save the historic building from destruction. Here, in December,
1906, the Old South Chapter had a meeting where there was “much good
speaking.” My mother recited her “Battle Hymn” and told them something
of her Revolutionary ancestors. She remembered her forebears with
affectionate pride as noble men and women whose example she strove to
imitate.
A long life brings its penalties as well as its pleasures. Living to
the age of nearly ninety-two years, my mother survived all the friends
of her youth and most, if not all, of her contemporaries. Hence she
was called upon to attend many funerals, considering this a duty, in
accordance with old-fashioned ideas. A temporary lameness prevented her
attending the obsequies of the poet Longfellow, an early friend of her
husband’s, whom she also had known well for many years. She was able,
however, to testify to her friendship for the gentle poet by giving her
services for the Longfellow Memorial held at the Boston Museum. Here
she took part in an authors’ reading, reciting the “Battle Hymn,” as
well as some verses composed in honor of the poet.
That she should be invited to do so shows a great change in public
opinion since the early years of their acquaintance. In the ’forties
and ’fifties it was not thought fitting that a lady should even sign
her name to a poem or a novel, much less read it in public. When my
mother published some verses in a volume edited by Mr. Longfellow in
those early days, they appeared as anonymous. By his advice, her first
book of poems, _Passion Flowers_, bore no name upon the title-page.
VIII
TRIBUTES TO “THE BATTLE HYMN”
From Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Conan Doyle, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, William Dean Howells,[33] U. S. Senator George F. Hoar,
Thomas Starr King, Ina Coolbrith, and others--The “Battle Hymn” and
the “Marseillaise”--What Rudyard Kipling said of it in “The Light
that Failed”--English reprints distributed among the soldiers of the
present war.
The appeal of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is so wide that it
takes in all classes of mankind, all, at least, who love freedom.
Wherever rise the peoples,
Wherever sinks a throne,
The throbbing heart of freedom
Finds an answer in his own.
So wrote the poet Whittier of Samuel Gridley Howe, remembering his
services to the Greeks, to the Poles and others. The lines are equally
true of his wife, Julia Ward Howe, and of the spirit animating her war
lyric. Although written in the midst of the greatest civil war that was
ever fought and won, there is no word of North or South, no appeal to
local pride or patriotism, no word of sectional strife or bitterness.
The God to whom appeal is made is the God of freedom. The enemy to be
overcome, the serpent who is to be crushed beneath the heel of the
hero, is slavery.
It is amusing and yet sad to find that some literal souls have fancied
that my mother intended to designate the Southerners by “the grapes of
wrath.” Needless to say that the writer intended no such narrow and
prosaic meaning.
The “Battle Hymn” may well be compared to the “Marseillaise.” The
man is to be pitied who can hear either of them without a thrill
of answering emotion. Both have the power to move their hearers
profoundly, yet they are as different as the two nationalities which
gave them birth. The French national hymn appeals to us by its
wonderfully stirring music more than by the words. We can imagine
how the latter aroused to a frenzy of feeling the men of the French
Revolution, when they rose to throw off the yoke of centuries of
oppression and misrule. Feudalism perished in France to the fiery music
of the “Marseillaise.” Slavery died in America to the old “John Brown”
tune, as slow and steadfast in movement as the Northern race who sang
it.
In our war lyric we seem to hear an echo of the old cry, “The sword of
the Lord and of Gideon.” Yet we did not fully recognize its tremendous
power until Kipling christened it “_The terrible Battle Hymn of the
Republic_.”
In the closing scene of _The Light that Failed_[34] we are shown a
group of English newspaper correspondents about to start for a war
in the Soudan. They are met together for a last evening of song and
merrymaking, yet one of their number “by the instinct of association
began to hum the terrible Battle Hymn of the Republic. Man after man
caught it up--it was a tune they knew well, till the windows shook to
the clang, the Nilghai’s deep voice leading:
“‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.’”
Sir A. Conan Doyle pays a similar tribute to its power in _Through the
Magic Door_:
“Take the songs which they sang during the most bloody war which the
Anglo-Celtic race has ever waged--the only war in which it could have
been said that they were stretched to their uttermost and showed their
true form ... all had a playful humor running through them. Only one
exception do I know, and that is the most tremendous war song I can
recall; even an outsider in time of peace can hardly read it without
emotion. I mean, of course, Julia Ward Howe’s war song of the Republic,
with the choral opening line,
‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.’
If that were ever sung upon a battle-field the effect must have been
terrific.”
During the present war in Europe, an English lady has had a large
number of copies of the “Hymn” printed and distributed, through the
Young Men’s Christian Association, to the soldiers. They contain the
following explanation: “This magnificent ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’
was written in 1861 by a famous American lady, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe,
for the Army of the Northern States of America, which were then engaged
in a ‘Holy War’ to rid the South of slavery and to preserve the Union
of the States. It is said to have done more to awaken the spirit of
patriotism and to have inspired more deeds of heroism than any other
event of the American Civil War.”
It is pleasant and heartening to read these tributes of praise from
distinguished Englishmen. That our “Battle Hymn of the Republic” should
so strongly appeal to them shows us the essential unity of the two
great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race, even though oceans roll between
Great Britain and America.
The strange glory that came over the face of Abraham Lincoln and the
tears he shed on hearing the “Battle Hymn” will always be, for his
countrymen, the most precious tribute to its power.
“The chaplain afterward stated that in his conversation with Mr.
Lincoln at his reception, the President said to him, ‘Take it all in
all, the song and the singing, that was the best I ever heard.’”[35]
To the steadfast and courageous soul of another great American, who
also has held the high office of President of these United States,
Theodore Roosevelt, this war hymn strongly appealed. His book, _Fear
God and Take Your Own Part_, is prefaced by “The Battle Hymn of the
Republic” and by the following dedication:
“This book is dedicated to the memory of
JULIA WARD HOWE
because in the vital matters fundamentally affecting the life of the
Republic she was as good a citizen of the Republic as Washington and
Lincoln themselves. She was in the highest sense a good wife and a good
mother, and therefore she fulfilled the primary law of our being. She
brought up with devoted care and wisdom her sons and her daughters.
At the same time she fulfilled her full duty to the commonwealth from
the public standpoint. She preached righteousness and she practised
righteousness. She sought the peace that comes as the handmaiden of
well-doing. She preached that stern and lofty courage of soul which
shrinks neither from war nor from any other form of suffering and
hardship and danger if it is only thereby that justice can be served.
She embodied that trait more essential than any other in the make-up of
the men and women of this Republic--the valor of righteousness.”
In the letter given below, Hon. George F. Hoar, United States Senator
from Massachusetts, compares “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” with the
“Marseillaise” and with the “British National Anthem.”
WORCESTER, MASS., _May 22, 1903_.
I was thinking, just as I got your letter asking me to send a
greeting to your meeting and to Mrs. Howe, of the great power, in
framing the character of nations, of their National Anthems. Fletcher
of Saltoun said, as every child knows, “Let me make the songs of a
people, and I care not who make their laws.” No single influence has
had so much to do with shaping the destiny of a nation, as nothing
more surely expresses national character, than what is known as the
National Anthem. France adopted for hers the “Marseillaise.” Its
stirring appeal
Sons of France, awake to glory!
led the youth of France to march through Europe, subduing kingdoms
and overthrowing dynasties, till “forty centuries looked down on them
from the pyramids.” At last the ambition of France perished and came
to grief, as every unholy ambition is destined to perish and come to
grief, and her great Emperor died in exile at St. Helena.
Is there anything more cheap and vulgar than the National Anthem of
our English brethren, “God Save the King”?
O Lord our God, arise!
Scatter his enemies
And make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks;
On him our hopes we fix;
God save us all!
England, I hope, knows better now. But she has acted on that motto
for a thousand years.
New England’s Anthem,
The breaking waves dashed high,
one of the noblest poems in all literature, was written by a woman.
We waited eighty years for our American National Anthem. At last God
inspired an illustrious and noble woman to utter in undying verse
the thought which we hope is forever to animate the soldier of the
Republic.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom which transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on!
Julia Ward Howe cannot yet vote in America. But her words will be an
inspiration to the youth of America on many a hard-fought field for
liberty many a century after her successors will vote.
I am faithfully yours,
GEORGE F. HOAR.
MISS ALICE STONE BLACKWELL.
In the journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson we find this tribute to his
friend, Julia Ward Howe:
“I honour the author of the ‘Battle Hymn’ and of ‘The Flag.’ She was
born in the city of New York. I could well wish she were a native of
Massachusetts. We have had no such poetess in New England.”
The little bit of State pride voiced in the regret that my mother was
not a native of the old Bay State, surprises us in a man of such wide
sympathies as Mr. Emerson. In Whittier’s early poems also the local
feeling is strongly pronounced. We should remember, however, that
during the nineteenth century a good deal of sectional feeling still
existed in the different States. The twentieth century finds us more
closely united as a people than we have ever been before.
Edmund Clarence Stedman happily characterizes the war hymn in the
following passage. It occurs in a letter to me, asking that my mother
would copy it for him.
“I can well understand what a Frankenstein’s monster such a creation
grows to be--such a poem as the ‘Battle Hymn’ when it has become the
sacred scroll of millions, each one of whom would fain obtain a copy of
it.”[36]
Those who have visited the White Mountains will remember that one of
the peaks is called “Starr King.” It was named for Thomas Starr King,
a noted Unitarian preacher in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Shortly before the Civil War he accepted a call to San Francisco. In
addition to officiating in the church there he soon took upon his
shoulders a task that was too heavy for his somewhat frail physique.
This was nothing less than persuading the people of California to
remain loyal to the Union. There was a good deal of secession sentiment
on the Pacific coast in 1861. Starr King and his fellow-Unionists
succeeded in their undertaking, but he paid the penalty of overwork
with his life. Hence his memory is beloved and revered on the shores
of the Pacific as well as on those of the Atlantic. One can imagine
what the “Battle Hymn” must have meant to him, weary as he was with his
strenuous labors. He pronounced it “a miraculously perfect poem.”
Another “Spray of Western Pine” was contributed to the garland of
praise by Ina Coolbrith, one of the last survivors of the golden age of
California literature.
JULIA WARD HOWE
When with the awful lightning of His glance,
Jehovah, thro’ the mighty walls of sea
His people led from their long bondage free,--
A Woman’s hand, too light to lift the lance,
Miriam, the Prophetess, with song and dance,
With timbrel, and with harp and psaltery,
Struck the proud notes of triumphs yet to be,
And voiced her Israel’s deliverance.
So in our own dear Land, in strife to save
Another race oppressed, when light grew dim,
And the Red Sea of blood loomed fatefully
To overwhelm, the God of freedom gave
Thro’ Woman’s lips His sacred battle hymn
That rang thro’ combat on to victory!
When memorial services were held in honor of my mother, Boston’s
great Symphony Hall was crowded to its utmost capacity. Many were
the beautiful tributes to her given by men and women of national
reputation. None, however, equaled in heartfelt eloquence the speech of
Lewis, the distinguished negro lawyer. As he poured out the gratitude
of his race to the woman who had written “The Battle Hymn of the
Republic,” I suddenly realized for the first time what the words meant
to the colored people.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.
“To make us, black men and black women, free!” The appeal was to the
white men of our country, bidding them share the freedom they so
dearly prized with the despised slave. And this triumphant gospel of
liberty with its stirring chorus of “Glory, glory, hallelujah” was
sung wherever the Northern army went. It was the first proclamation of
emancipation. If it moves us, how must it have affected the people to
whom it was a prophecy of the longed-for deliverance from bondage.
IX
MRS. HOWE’S LESSER POEMS OF THE CIVIL WAR
Her poetic tribute to Frederick Douglass--“Left Behind,” “Our
Orders,” “April 19”--“The Flag” followed the second battle of Bull
Run--“The Secesh” in the Newport churches--“The First Martyr,” “Our
Country,” “Harvard Student’s Song,” “Return”--How “Our Country” lost
its musical setting--“The Parricide” written on the day of Lincoln’s
funeral to express her reverence.
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,[37] 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
Two figures fill this temple to my sight,
Whoe’er shall speak, their forms behind him stand;
One has the beauty of our Northern blood,
And wields Jove’s thunder in his lifted hand.
The other wears the solemn hue of Night
Drawn darker in the blazonry of pain,
Blotting the gaslight’s mimic day, he slings
A dangerous weapon, too, a broken chain.
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:
LEFT BEHIND
The foe is retreating, the field is clear;
My thoughts fly like lightning, my steps stay here;
I’m bleeding to faintness, no help is near:
What, ho! comrades; what, ho!
The battle was deadly, the shots fell thick;
We leaped from our trenches, and charged them quick;
I knew not my wound till my heart grew sick:
So there, comrades; so there.
We charged the left column, that broke and fled;
Poured powder for powder, and lead for lead:
So they must surrender, what matter who’s dead?
Who cares, comrades? who cares?
My soul rises up on the wings of the slain,
A triumph thrills through me that quiets the pain:
If it were yet to do, I would do it again!
Farewell, comrades, farewell!
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:[38]
“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:
“OUR ORDERS
“Weave no more silks, ye Lyons Looms;
To deck our girls for gay delights!
The crimson flower of battle blooms,
And solemn marches fill the night.
“Weave but the flag whose bars to-day
Drooped heavy o’er our early dead,
And homely garments, coarse and gray,
For orphans that must earn their bread!”
(We give the first two of the six verses.)
Other verses published in _Later Lyrics_ under the title “April 19”
commemorate the same event. They were evidently written in the first
heat of indignation at the breaking out of the rebellion, yet her
righteous wrath always gave way to a second thought, tenderer and more
merciful than the first. We see this in the last verse of the “Battle
Hymn” and in various other poems of hers. The opening verses of “April
19” are: