The Story of the Battle Hymn of the Republic/Chapter 9

by Florence Marion Howe Hall

IX

Mrs. Howe's Lesser Poems of the Civil War

Her poetic tribute to Frederick Douglass—"Left Behind," "Our Orders," "April 19"—"The Flag" followed the second battle of Bull Run—"The Secesh" in the Newport churches—"The First Martyr," "Our Country," "Harvard Student's Song," "Return"—How "Our Country" lost its musical setting—"The Parricide" written on the day of Lincoln's funeral to express her reverence.

MY mother's natural mode of expressing herself was by poetry rather than by prose. She wrote verses from her earliest years up to the time of her death. It is true that some of her best work took the form of prose in her essays, lectures, and speeches,^[1] yet whenever her feelings were deeply moved she turned to verse as the fittest vehicle for her use.

We have seen that she began to write poems protesting against human slavery at an early period of her career. Thus her first published "On the Death of the Slave Lewis." In Words for the Hour we find several poems dealing with slavery, the struggle in Kansas, the attack on Sumner, and kindred subjects. The titles of these and some quotations from them are given in Chapter I. The verses on "Tremont Temple" contain tributes to Sumner and Frederick Douglass, the negro orator. The first two are as follows: volume, Passion Flowers (1853), contained verses

Two figures fill this temple to my sight, Whoe'er shall speak, their forms behind him stand;One has the beauty of our Northern blood, And wields Jove's thunder in his lifted hand.

The other wears the solemn hue of Night Drawn darker in the blazonry of pain,Blotting the gaslight's mimic day, he slings A dangerous weapon, too, a broken chain.

When the Civil War broke out, she poured forth the feelings that so deeply moved her in a number of poems. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is the best known of these, as it deserves to be. The others, however, while varying as to merit, show the same patriotism, indignation against wrong, and elevation of spirit. The woman's tenderness of heart breathes through them, too, as in the story of the dying soldier:

Left Behind

The foe is retreating, the field is clear;My thoughts fly like lightning, my steps stay here;I'm bleeding to faintness, no help is near:   What, ho! comrades; what, ho!

The battle was deadly, the shots fell thick;We leaped from our trenches, and charged them quick;I knew not my wound till my heart grew sick:   So there, comrades; so there.

We charged the left column, that broke and fled;Poured powder for powder, and lead for lead:So they must surrender, what matter who's dead?   Who cares, comrades? who cares?

My soul rises up on the wings of the slain,A triumph thrills through me that quiets the pain:If it were yet to do, I would do it again!   Farewell, comrades, farewell!

It will be remembered that the first blood shed in the Civil War was in Baltimore. There the Massachusetts troops, while on their way to defend the national capital, were attacked by "Plug-Uglies" and several soldiers were killed. My mother thus describes the funeral in Boston:^[2]

"We were present when these bodies were received at King's Chapel burial-ground, and could easily see how deeply the Governor was moved at the sad sight of the coffins draped with the national flag. This occasion drew from me the poem:

"Our Orders

"Weave no more silks, ye Lyons Looms; To deck our girls for gay delights!The crimson flower of battle blooms, And solemn marches fill the night.

"Weave but the flag whose bars to-day Drooped heavy o'er our early dead,And homely garments, coarse and gray, For orphans that must earn their bread!"

(We give the first two of the six verses.)

Other verses published in Later Lyrics under the title "April 19" commemorate the same event. They were evidently written in the first heat of indignation at the breaking out of the rebellion, yet her righteous wrath always gave way to a second thought, tenderer and more merciful than the first. We see this in the last verse of the "Battle Hymn" and in various other poems of hers. The opening verses of "April 19" are:

A spasm o'er my heart Sweeps like a burning flood;A sentence rings upon mine ears, Avenge the guiltless blood!

Sit not in health and ease, Nor reckon loss nor gain,When men who bear our Country's flag Are set upon and slain.

Of her "Poems of the War" "The Flag" ranks second in popular esteem and has a place in many anthologies. She thus describes the circumstances under which it was composed:^[3]

"Even in gay Newport there were sad reverberations of the strife. I shall never forget an afternoon on which I drove into town with my son, by this time a lad of fourteen, and found the main street lined with carriages, and the carriages filled with white-faced people, intent on I knew not what. Meeting a friend, I asked: 'Why are these people here? What are they waiting for and why do they look as they do?'

"'They are waiting for the mail. Don't you know that we have had a dreadful reverse?' Alas! this was the second battle of Bull Run. I have made some record of it in a poem entitled 'The Flag,' which I dare mention here because Mr. Emerson, on hearing it, said to me, 'I like the architecture of that poem.'"

The opening verse is as follows:

There's a flag hangs over my threshold, whose folds are more dear to meThan the blood that thrills in my bosom its earnest of liberty;And dear are the stars it harbors in its sunny field of blueAs the hope of a further heaven, that lights all our dim lives through.

Before the war, Newport had been a favorite resort for Southerners. During the summer of 1861 a number were still there, and it must be confessed some of them behaved with very little tact. According to reports current at the time, these individuals carried politics inside the church doors. When the prayer for the President of the United States was read, they arose from their knees in order to show their disapproval. At its conclusion they again knelt. Women would draw aside the voluminous skirts then in fashion, to prevent their coming in contact with the United States flag. I have always fancied that the lines in "The Flag,"

Salute the flag in its virtue, or pass on where others rule,

were inspired by this behavior of "The Secesh," as we then called them. Some of these persons, although belonging to good society, had the bad taste to boast in our presence of how the South was going to "whip" the North. At a certain picnic among the Paradise Rocks, my mother resolved to give these people a lesson in patriotism. One of our number, a quiet, elderly lady, was selected to act as America, the queen of the occasion. She was crowned with flowers, and we all saluted her with patriotic songs.

"The First Martyr" tells the story of a visit to the wife of John Brown before the latter's execution:

My five-years' darling, on my knee,Chattered and toyed and laughed with me;"Now tell me, mother mine," quoth she, "Where you went i' the afternoon.""Alas! my pretty little life,I went to see a sorrowing wife,Who will be widowed soon."·····Child! It is fit that thou shouldst weep;The very babe unborn would leapTo rescue such as he.

"Our Country" contains no word about the civil strife, although it is classed with "Poems of the War" in her volume entitled Later Lyrics. A prize was offered for a national song while the war was in progress, and Mrs. Howe sent in this poem, Otto Dresel composing the music. Mr. Dresel was a prominent figure in the musical world of Boston for many years and wrote a number of charming songs.

The prize which had been offered for the national song was never awarded, if I remember aright, and Mr. Dresel decided to use the tune he had composed, for the "Army Hymn" of Oliver Wendell Holmes. This was "superbly sung by L. C. Campbell, assisted by the choir and band" at the opening exercises of the Great Metropolitan Fair held in New York during the Civil War, for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission.

"Our Country" thus lost its musical setting, to my mother's regret.

Our Country

On primal rocks she wrote her name, Her towers were reared on holy graves,The golden seed that bore her came Swift-winged with prayer o'er ocean waves.

The Forest bowed his solemn crest, And open flung his sylvan doors;Meek Rivers led the appointed Guest To clasp the wide-embracing shores;

Till, fold by fold, the broidered Land To swell her virgin vestments grew,While Sages, strong in heart and hand, Her virtue's fiery girdle drew.

O Exile of the wrath of Kings! O Pilgrim Ark of Liberty!The refuge of divinest things, Their record must abide in thee.

First in the glories of thy front Let the crown jewel Truth be found;Thy right hand fling with generous wont Love's happy chain to furthest bound.

Let Justice with the faultless scales Hold fast the worship of thy sons,Thy commerce spread her shining sails Where no dark tide of rapine runs.

So link thy ways to those of God, So follow firm the heavenly laws,That stars may greet thee, warrior-browed, And storm-sped angels hail thy cause.

O Land, the measure of our prayers, Hope of the world, in grief and wrong!Be thine the blessing of the years, The gift of faith, the crown of song.

The news of Lincoln's assassination dealt a stunning blow to our people. The rejoicings over the end of the Civil War were suddenly changed to deep sorrow, indignation, and fear. How widely the conspiracy spread we did not know. It will be remembered that other officers of the Federal Government were attacked. My mother wrote that nothing since the death of her little boy^[4] had given her so much personal pain. As usual, she sought relief for her feelings in verse. "The Parricide," written on the day of Lincoln's funeral, expresses her love and reverence for the great man, her horror of the "Fair assassin, murder—white," whom she bids:

With thy serpent speed avoid Each unsullied household light,Every conscience unalloyed.

As usual, compassion followed anger. "Pardon," written a few days later, after the death of Wilkes Booth, is the better poem of the two.

PardonWilkes Booth—April 26, 1865

Pains the sharp sentence the heart in whose wrath it was uttered,  Now thou art cold;Vengeance, the headlong, and Justice, with purpose close muttered,  Loosen their hold.

Death brings atonement; he did that whereof ye accuse him,—  Murder accurst;But, from that crisis of crime in which Satan did lose him,  Suffered the worst.·····

Back to the cross, where the Saviour uplifted in dying  Bade all souls live,Turns the reft bosom of Nature, his mother, low sighing,  Greatest, forgive!

On July 21, 1865, Harvard University held memorial exercises in honor of her sons who had given their lives for their country. The living graduates of that day numbered only twenty-four hundred, including the aged, sick, and absent. Of these more than five hundred went out to fight in behalf of the Union, many of them to return no more. Their names may be seen engraved on the marble tablets of Memorial Hall, Cambridge, a daily lesson in patriotism to the undergraduates who frequent it. Full of fun and nonsense as the latter are, they will permit no disrespect to the memory of the heroes of the Civil War. If visitors enter without removing their hats, an instant clamor arises, forcing them to do so.

On this Commencement day of 1865 a notable assemblage gathered at Harvard. In addition to other distinguished people there were present, as Governor Andrew said in his address, a "cloud of living witnesses who have come back laden with glory from the fields where their comrades fell." Phillips Brooks made a prayer, Ralph Waldo Emerson and others spoke. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Rev. Charles T. Brooks, James Russell Lowell, his brother Robert, John S. Dwight, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe contributed poems. The verses of the latter were read by her friend, Mr. Samuel Eliot. The opening ones are as follows:

Return

They are coming, oh my Brothers, they are coming! From the formless distance creeps the growing sound,Like a rill-fed forest, in whose rapid summing, Stream doth follow stream, till waves of joy abound.

These have languished in the shadow of the prison, Long with hunger pains and bitter fever low;Welcome back our lost, from living graves arisen, From the wild despite and malice of the foe.

Another of her war poems speaks in the name of the sons of the old university. When it was published in the newspapers, a careless typesetter made some errors in setting it up. I remember how troubled she was when the line

O give them back, thou bloody breast of Treason—

was printed "beast" of Treason.

We give a single verse of the "Harvard Student's Song":

Remember ye how, out of boyhood leaping, Our gallant mates stood ready for the fray,As new-fledged eaglets rise, with sudden sweeping, And meet unscared the dazzling front of day?Our classic toil became inglorious leisure, We praised the calm Horatian ode no more,But answered back with song the martial measure, That held its throb above the cannon's roar.

The other "Poems of the War" published in Later Lyrics are entitled "Requital," "The Question," "One and Many," "Hymn for a Spring Festival," "The Jeweller's Shop in War-time," and "The Battle Eucharist."

In these we see how deeply the writer's soul was oppressed by the sorrow of the war and the horrors of the battle-field. We see, too, how it turned ever for comfort and encouragement to the Cross and to the Lord of Hosts.

1. Mr. Howells writes in his Literary Boston Thirty Years Ago: "I heard Mrs. Howe speak in public and it seemed to me that she made one of the best speeches I had ever heard."
2. Reminiscences, p. 261.
3. Reminiscences, p. 261.
4. Samuel Gridley Howe, Jr., who died in May, 1863, aged three and a half years.