The “Battle Hymn” was the most notable of these inspirations. In her Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Struggle she ascribes its composition to two causes—the religion of humanity and the passion of patriotism. The former was a plant of slow growth. In her tribute to Theodore Parker,[22] she tells us how this developed under his preaching, and how he prepared his hearers for the war of blood and iron that soon followed.
My mother had long cherished love for her country, but it burned more intensely when the war came, bursting into sudden flame after that memorable day with the soldiers.
“When the war broke out, the passion of patriotism lent its color to the religion of humanity in my own mind, as in many others, and a moment came in which I could say:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!
—and the echo which my words awoke in many hearts made me sure that many other people had seen it also.”[23]
IV
“THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC”
“The crimson flower of battle blooms” in a single night—The vision in the gray morning twilight—It is written down in the half-darkness on her husband’s official paper of the U. S. Sanitary Commission—How it was published in the Atlantic Monthly and the price paid for it—The John Brown air derived from a camp-meeting hymn—The simple story in her own words.
OVER and over again, so many times that she lost count of them, was my mother asked to describe the circumstances under which she composed “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Fortunately she wrote them down, so that we are able to give “the simple story” in her own words.
The following account is taken in part from her Reminiscences and in part from the leaflet printed in honor of her seventieth birthday, May 27, 1889, by the New England Woman’s Club. She was president of this association for about forty years:
“I distinctly remember that a feeling of discouragement came over me as I drew near the city of Washington. I thought of the women of my acquaintance whose sons or husbands were fighting our great battle; the women themselves serving in the hospitals or busying themselves with the work of the Sanitary Commission. My husband, as already said, was beyond the age of military service, my eldest son but a stripling; my youngest was a child of not more than two years. I could not leave my nursery to follow the march of our armies, neither had I the practical deftness which the preparing and packing of sanitary stores demanded. Something seemed to say to me, ‘You would be glad to serve, but you cannot help any one; you have nothing to give, and there is nothing for you to do.’ Yet, because of my sincere desire, a word was given me to say which did strengthen the hearts of those who fought in the field and of those who languished in prison.