He captured Harper’s Ferry with his nineteen men, so few,
And he frightened “Old Virginny,” till she trembled through and through;
They hung him for a traitor, themselves a traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on! O Glory! Hallelujah!
IV.
John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see—
Christ who of the bondman shall the Liberator be;
And soon throughout the sunny South the slaves shall all be free,
For his soul is marching on! O Glory! Hallelujah!
V.
The conflict that he heralded, he looks from heaven to view—
On the army of the Union, with its flag, red, white and blue;
And Heaven shall ring with anthems o’er the deed they mean to do,
For his soul is marching on! O Glory! Hallelujah!
VI.
Ye soldiers brave of freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,
The death-blow of oppression, in a better time and way,
For the dawn of Old John Brown has brightened into day,
And his soul is marching on! O Glory! Hallelujah!
These stanzas were published in the Chicago Tribune of Nov. 16th, 1861, and were at once issued also in sheet music by Root & Cady, the principal music firm of the West at that time. It thus went all over the West and into the army at the South. When the “Jubilee Singers” prepared a version of “John Brown” to sing, they adopted the second and third stanzas of my song, and perhaps others, and carried them still more widely. Wendell Phillips used to quote the third stanza with great effect at times.
WM. W. PATTON.