“The journey was one of vivid, even romantic interest. We were about to see the grim Demon of War face to face; and long before we reached the city his presence made itself felt in the blaze of fires along the road where sat or stood our pickets, guarding the road on which we travelled.
“One day we drove out to attend a review of troops, appointed to take place some distance from the city. In the carriage with me were James Freeman Clarke and Mr. and Mrs. Whipple. The day was fine, and everything promised well; but a sudden surprise on the part of the enemy interrupted the proceedings before they were well begun. A small body of our men had been surrounded and cut off from their companions; reinforcements were sent to their assistance, and the expected pageant was necessarily given up. The troops who were to have taken part in it were ordered back to their quarters, and we also turned our horses’ heads homeward.
“For a long distance the foot-soldiers nearly filled the road. They were before and behind, and we were obliged to drive very slowly. We presently began to sing some of the well-known songs of the war, and among them—
‘John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave.’
This seemed to please the soldiers, who cried, ‘Good for you!’ and themselves took up the strain. Mr. Clarke said to me, ‘You ought to write some new words to that tune.’ I replied that I had often wished to do so.
“In spite of the excitement of the day I went to bed and slept as usual, but awoke next morning in the gray of the early dawn, and to my astonishment found that the wished-for lines were arranging themselves in my brain. I lay quite still until the last verse had completed itself in my thoughts, then hastily rose, saying to myself, ‘I shall lose this if I don’t write it down immediately.’ I searched for a sheet of paper and an old stump of a pen which I had had the night before, and began to scrawl the lines almost without looking, as I had learned to do by often scratching down verses in the darkened room where my little children were sleeping. Having completed this, I lay down again and fell asleep, but not without feeling that something of importance had happened to me.
“The poem was published soon after this time in the Atlantic Monthly. It first came prominently into notice when Chaplain McCabe, newly released from Libby Prison, gave a lecture in Washington, and in the course of it told how he and his fellow-prisoners, having somehow become possessed of a copy of the ‘Battle Hymn,’ sang it with a will in their prison, on receiving surreptitious tidings of a Union victory.”
Our mother’s genius might soar as high as heaven on the wings of such a song as this; but we always considered that she was tied to our little string, and we never doubted (alas!) our perfect right to pull her down to earth whenever a matter of importance—such as a doll’s funeral or a sick kitten—was at hand.
To her our confidences were made, for she had a rare understanding of the child-mind. We were always sure that Mamma knew “just how it was.”
To her did Julia, at the age of five, or it may have been six, impart the first utterances of her infant Muse. “Mamma,” said the child, trembling with delight and awe, “I have made a poem, and set it to music!” Of course our mother was deeply interested, and begged to hear the composition; whereupon, encouraged by her voice and smile, Julia sang as follows:—