“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” This is the opening line of the most famous song to come out the American Civil War, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Its author, Julia Ward Howe, is best known for her work as a poet and abolitionist. However, she is also partially responsible for Mother’s Day, even though for her the purpose of the day had a much different meaning.Born in 1819, Howe came from a wealthy New York family and, as such, she traveled in the same circle as famous authors such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Soon she became known for her own poetry which was often social commentary. During this time Howe became interested in the abolitionist’s movement and women’s rights. However, while she believed slavery was wrong, she did not believe in Black equality and so did not always get along with more prominent abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison.During the Civil War in 1862 she visited Washington D.C. and met President Lincoln. It was on this trip that she wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” There are many stories as to her inspiration, but my favorite, so let’s pretend it’s true, is that after visiting a hospital during the day and seeing the ghastly horrors of war, she woke up that from a dream and wrote down the lyrics to this song which includes lines like, “As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.” The words were put to the music from an earlier released abolitionist song “John Brown’s Body,” and it was adopted as the unofficial anthem of the Union Army. (Side note: the version I use in class is The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square’s 1960 Grammy Award-winning version. Trust me, it’s moving.)After the war, Howe could now focus her attention on her other passion: women’s rights. While influential, she broke with more prominent feminists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and formed the American Woman’s Suffrage Association with Lucy Stone. The organization welcomed men to join, and supported the Fifteenth Amendment which gave Black men the right to vote before women.In the 1870s, with the start of the Franco-Prussian War, Howe began to turn much of her attention to pacifism. Having seen the effects of war at home, she did not want ...
