"Words for the Hour": A New Anthology of American Civil War Poetry

1862

1862   Fair Oaks, Virginia. Lt. James B. Washington, a Confederate prisoner, with Captain George A. Custer of the th Cavalry, U.S.A., taken after the Seven Days’ battles. Photograph by James F. Gibson. Library of Congress, Brady Civil War Photograph Collection, LC-B-. Battle Hymn of the Republic1 J W H 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 can 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.” He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat: Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our 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 men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.  . Atlantic Monthly February . Urged by a friend in  to write new lyrics for the popular song “John Brown’s Body,” Howe woke in the middle of the night to write out the verses that had just occurred to her and then sold the poem for five dollars to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly.This poem was reprinted widely and became one of the most popular songs of the North and, after the war, of American popular culture.The poem was first published without the “glory hallelujah”chorus,although Howe knew the chorus from“John Brown’s Body”;for Howe’s poem, the chorus repeats the final line of each stanza as its final phrase—for example, “Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! / Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.”  P P  N  P Anomalies2 C M The North is armed, but it is an armed neutrality, rather than an armed crusade; it is marshaled in the array of battle, but not for the extermination of its foe.The South is in arms that slavery may be perpetuated; the North is in arms, determined that slavery shall not be injured; two great armies diligently guarding the one stupendous wrong of the earth; two great armies of countrymen carefully guarding the dragon that has stung them both into fratricidal madness, and will sting them both to death. Rev. O. B. Frothingham’s Sermon, “The Year’s Record of Sadness and Gladness.” Two armies drawn up in battle array, Both fighting for slavery—each in its way! Two Governments—hostile, but both agreed Of all the trouble to save the seed! A War that has festered nine months or more, And nobody daring to touch the sore! A thousand remedies all applied, And the only true one left untried! Merciful Heaven! Is the Nation mad? Or—truth more terrible yet, and sad— Has God departed and left us still To follow the bent of our own wild will? To work out, under His wrathful eyes, Our fearful measure of wrong and lies? Oh, for some Prophet, with burning word, Straight from the presence of the Lord, To thunder the truth in our guilty ears, That God has been whispering us for years: — “Hear, oh People; the Lord has spoke! Loose each shackle and break each yoke. . National Anti-Slavery Standard February , .   “Let my opprest and my poor go free; The voice of their sighing has come to me. “Not oblations and altar fires, Mercy and Justice my Hand requires. “Mercy and Justice; as I am true, As ye give others, I give to you.” A Battle Hymn3 G H B God, to Thee we humbly bow, With hand unarmed and naked brow; Musket, lance, and sheathéd sword At Thy feet we lay, O Lord! Gone is all the soldier’s boast In the valor of the host; Kneeling...