![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plutherusWe've all heard of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, right? "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" and so forth.
I knew the song originated in the American Civil War, but what I did not know was that it was based on a previous song - also a Civil War anthem - written a couple of years earlier, about one of my heroes, the terrorist/freedom fighter John Brown.
The "original" lyrics were written by William W. Patton and, according to this site, are:
An even earlier version was more repetitive, simply:
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, /|
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
But his soul goes marching on.
And a few other such verses with repeated lines "He's gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord," and "John Brown died that the slaves might be free".
By the way, all this talk of freeing the slaves? Yeah, that's from 1861, two years before the Emancipation Proclamation and thus obviously was not, as certain politicians would have you believe, a revisionist afterthought.
I'm not sure where the actual tune comes from. I'm sure it is much older, and new lyrics were simply crafted to fit it, as that was pretty common practice at the time. (See also our national anthem.)
I knew the song originated in the American Civil War, but what I did not know was that it was based on a previous song - also a Civil War anthem - written a couple of years earlier, about one of my heroes, the terrorist/freedom fighter John Brown.
The "original" lyrics were written by William W. Patton and, according to this site, are:
Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on.
John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave,
And Kansas knows his valor when he fought her rights to save;
Now, tho the grass grows green above his grave,
His soul is marching on.
He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,
And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru;
They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on.
John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,
Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,
And soon thruout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,
For his soul is marching on.
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.
Ye soldiers 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.
An even earlier version was more repetitive, simply:
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, /|
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
But his soul goes marching on.
And a few other such verses with repeated lines "He's gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord," and "John Brown died that the slaves might be free".
By the way, all this talk of freeing the slaves? Yeah, that's from 1861, two years before the Emancipation Proclamation and thus obviously was not, as certain politicians would have you believe, a revisionist afterthought.
I'm not sure where the actual tune comes from. I'm sure it is much older, and new lyrics were simply crafted to fit it, as that was pretty common practice at the time. (See also our national anthem.)
