Date: 1/28/01
VOICE ONE:
I'm Ray Freeman.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Shirley Griffith with the Special English program, PEOPLE IN
AMERICA.
Every week we tell about a person important in the
history of the United States.
Today, we tell about Julia Ward Howe.
She wrote one of the great
songs of the American Civil War, the "Battle Hymn of the
Republic."
((MUSIC CUT #1: FIFE AND DRUMS))
VOICE ONE:
Marching soldiers .
.
.
no end to the lines of soldiers marching
across the land.
They came from the northern states fighting to
keep the union together.
And they came from the southern states
fighting for a separate Confederate government that would
protect their right to have slaves.
In summer and winter, the
fighting continued.
The sun burned like fire.
The soldiers
marched on.
The cold winter winds blew snow in their faces.
The
soldiers marched on.
The United States was a nation cut in two by a bitter struggle
over slavery and a state's right to leave the Union.
America's
Civil War lasted four years.
It destroyed the land.
And it
destroyed the young men of the nation.
VOICE TWO:
Many stories have been told about the soldiers of the Civil War.
They have told of the soldiers fear and terror.
.
.
their great
and heroic acts.
.
.
how they suffered and died.
.
.
and how they
sang before and after battle.
One song, more than any other,
caught the spirit of the Union soldiers of the North.
The song
is the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Here is the first part of
the song, sung by Odetta:
((MUSIC CUT #2: Odetta "BATTLE HYMN"))
VOICE ONE:
The words are religious.
They are like a hymn, a song of praise
to God.
This is the story of the woman who wrote the song.
((MUSIC CUT #3: Ken Burns "BATTLE HYMN"))
VOICE TWO:
The place was Washington D.
C.
The year was Eighteen-Sixty-One.
It was a wet winter night.
There were thousands of soldiers in
the city.
The hospitals were full.
The field of battle was just
across the Potomac River in the southern state of Virginia.
A woman lay asleep in her hotel room.
She had had a long, hard
day.
She had come to Washington to visit the Union troops.
The
sight and sounds of the soldiers gave her no rest.
Even in her
sleep she seemed to hear them.
She heard their sad voices as
they sat beside their fires.
She heard them singing.
They sang
a marching song she knew.
It was a song about John Brown, an
activist against slavery.
The song told about how his body
turned to earth in the grave.
It told about how his spirit lived
on.
VOICE ONE:
The woman's name was Julia Ward Howe.
She was a writer and
social reformer.
She was born in New York City in
Eighteen-Nineteen.
Her father was a wealthy banker.
Julia
married Samuel Gridley Howe.
He was a reformer and teacher of
the blind.
Julia and Samuel Howe moved to Boston.
Missus Howe
raised five children.
And she published several books of poetry.
VOICE TWO:
Julia Ward Howe and Samuel Gridley Howe were leaders in the
movement in America to end slavery.
They published an
anti-slavery newspaper called the "Commonwealth."
Missus Howe had met John Brown.
Like him, she was an
anti-slavery activist.
She opposed those Americans who used
black people as slaves.
Unlike him, she did not approve of using
violence to end slavery.
In Eighteen-Fifty-Nine, John Brown tried to start a revolt of
slaves.
He led an attack on Harper's Ferry, a town in what was
then the state of Virginia.
[Editor's note: That area did not
become the state of West Virginia until 1863.
] The town had a
factory that made guns for the army.
It also had a storage
center for military equipment.
The attack on Harper's Ferry
failed.
John Brown was put on trial for treason.
He was found
guilty and was executed.
VOICE ONE:
In the northern states, John Brown became a hero.
His story was
told through song.
The song was most popular with soldiers.
It
became the unofficial marching song of the Union Army.
Julia Ward Howe also liked to sing the song.
She felt that the
music was beautiful, but the words about John Brown were not.
So
she decided to write different words to the music.
Those words came to her that night as she lay in her hotel room
in Washington.
She was awakened by her dreams of marching
soldiers.
VOICE TWO (WOMAN'S VOICE):
"I found to my surprise that the words were forming themselves in
my head.
I lay still until the last line had completed itself in
my thoughts.
Then I quickly got out of bed.
I thought I would forget the
words if I did not write them immediately.
I looked for a piece
of paper and a pen.
Then I began to write the lines of a poem:
'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 wrote until I was finished.
Then I lay down again and fell
asleep.
I felt something important had happened to me."
VOICE ONE:
An American magazine, "The Atlantic Monthly," bought Missus
Howe's poem.
She was paid four dollars.
The magazine published
the poem in Eighteen-Sixty-Two.
The poem became very popular.
It had just the right words for the great marching music.
The
soldiers of the Union Army began to sing the words Julia Ward
Howe had written.
It soon became their official marching song --
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
VOICE TWO:
Julia Ward Howe became famous.
She was invited to the White
House to meet President Abraham Lincoln.
After dinner at the
White House, the guests talked about the Civil War.
They were
sad.
The Union army had suffered many defeats.
Then someone
began to sing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Missus Howe and
President Lincoln joined in the singing.
There were tears in the
President's eyes.
Here is the last part of the song, sung by the
Mormon Tabernacle Choir:
((MUSIC CUT# 4: Mormon Choir "BATTLE HYMN" ))
VOICE ONE:
After the North won the Civil War in Eighteen-Sixty-Five, Julia
Ward Howe became involved in other social reform movements.
She
became a leader in the movement to gain equal rights for American
women, including the right to vote.
She helped establish the New
England Woman's Club in Eighteen-Sixty-Eight.
This organization
worked for equal rights for women in education and business.
She
served as president of the group for more than thirty years.
VOICE TWO:
Julia Ward Howe also became involved in the movement for peace.
In Eighteen-Seventy, she issued an "Appeal to Womanhood
Throughout the World." This was a call for an international
conference of women to support the peaceful settlement of
conflicts.
The next year she helped organize the American group
of the Woman's International Peace Association.
She became
president of the group.
Julia Ward Howe continued to write books and make speeches about the issues she felt were important. Through the years, thousands of people came to hear her recite her most famous poem. She died in Nineteen-Ten. She was ninety-one years old.
VOICE ONE :
The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" still is one of America's great
traditional songs.
No one knows for sure who wrote the music.
But the song lives on.
And so does the name of the woman who
made the music famous with her words: Julia Ward Howe.
(THEME)
VOICE TWO:
This Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust.
It
was produced by Lawan Davis.
I'm Shirley Griffith.
VOICE ONE:
And I'm Ray Freeman.
Join us again next week for another
PEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the Voice of America.