ABSTRACT
Composed in November 1861 the words which, set to the tune of 'John Brown's Body', became so famous arose from a visit to a Union army camp near Washington. Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), poet, journalist and reformer, created a hymn and a marching song which embodied the militant Christianity and evangelical transforming energies of many Northerners in the Civil War. God and the Union cause were united. In later decades, however, the Battle Hymn came to express the marriage of religion and a more general patriotism.
