Again and again the best troops of the Confederate army dashed up the slope of the low hill, only to break against the stubborn bands of men who could die but would not be defeated. And when at length the rebels made one more terrible rush, they were met, hurled back, broken, beaten, and scattered, and the battle was over.
That night, the Fourth of July, the anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence, there went up a shout through the North and East that must have reached to heaven. Just outside the town of Richmond, in Virginia, was a huge prison. Here some hundreds of Northern officers, prisoners of war, were held in captivity. They had heard of the struggle going on at Gettysburg, and they knew how much depended on that battle.
When, after the first and second days' fighting, the news of the Federal repulses reached them, their hearts sank. Eagerly yet anxiously they waited for the morrow. No eye in that dreary building was closed that night in sleep. The morning of the fourth day rose. They waited in fear, and strange rumours reached them. Some one brought word that their brethren were again defeated, and tears of shame and sorrow ran down many a worn face.
Then an aged negro approached the prison. He brought wonderful news, and through the bars he conveyed tidings of the Federal victory. For a moment the good news was scarcely believed. Next loud sobs were heard, mingled with murmured praises; then suddenly from hundreds of lips there rose this glorious battle-song of the North, for they felt, though many a battle was to follow, that the Union was saved:—
BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His Truth is marching on.
"I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I have read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
"I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel,
'As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal;'
Let the Hero born of woman crush the serpent with His heel
Since God is marching on.
"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make man holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on."