Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/0Gt38YT4AQDg4xRLFH5xuD?si=BNV8P5WQTlqoVoj8rlwA6A
Apple Music: music.apple.com/us/album/historical-songs-on-piano-the-american-civil-war/1810528848

Hello! This is a piano instrumental of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” one of the most famous songs of the American Civil War. This is the last of my 15 favorite Civil War songs that I wanted to make instrumentals of!

Discord: discord.com/invite/SGMHeZ7
Instagram: instagram.com/forterepublic

The lyrics to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” were written in 1861 by Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) during the American Civil War. Howe’s lyrics were adapted from the marching song “John Brown’s Body,” which was written about the abolitionist John Brown (1800-1859), who was executed after inciting a slave rebellion.

The tune of the song came from a folk hymn known as “Glory Hallelujah” or “Say, Brothers, Will You Meet Us,” which developed in Protestant camp meetings in the 1700s.

The image in the video is an 1887 painting titled “Battle of Antietam,” by Thule de Thulstrup. It depicts the charge of the Iron Brigade near the Dunker Church on September 17, 1862.


Lyrics:
I
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.

Chorus:
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

II
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.

Chorus

III
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.

Chorus

IV
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.

Chorus

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 live to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Chorus



Lyrics for “John Brown’s Body”
Old John Brown's body lies a moldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But though he sleeps his life was lost while struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on.

Chorus:
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His soul is marching on.

John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave,
And Kansas knew his valor when he fought her rights to save;
And now, though the grass grows green above his grave,
His soul is marching on.

(Chorus)

He captured Harper's Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,
And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled through and through
They hung him for a traitor, themselves a traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on.

(Chorus)

John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see—
Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,
And soon throughout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,
For his soul is marching on.

(Chorus)

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.

(Chorus)

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.

(Chorus)



Lyrics for “Say, Brothers”
I
Say, brothers, will you meet us (3x)
On Canaan’s happy shore.

Chorus:
Glory, glory, hallelujah! (3x)
Forever, evermore!

II
By the grace of God we’ll meet you (3x)
Where parting is no more.

Chorus

III.
Jesus lives and reigns forever (3x)
On Canaan’s happy shore.

Chorus



This music was made with Logic Pro.