Florence Howe Hall

“ These words sound strangely to us now, but it must be remembered that in the fifties we had seen our fair Bay State made an annex to slave territory. Men might well ask one another, “Can the Commonwealth of Massachusetts endure the disgrace of having slave-hunts within her borders?” “The Irrepressible Conflict” had come. When the pro-slavery leaders forced the fugitive-slave law through Congress they struck a blow at the life of the nation as deadly as that of Fort Sumter. The latter was the inevitable sequel of the former. ”

“ The scenes of the stirring prelude to the Civil War grew ever more stormy. Men became more and more wrought up as the relentless purpose of the Southern leaders was gradually revealed. The deadly serpent of slavery became a hydra-headed monster, striking north, east, and west. The hunting of fugitive slaves took on a sinister activity in the Northern “border” States; at the national capital the attempts to muzzle free speech culminated in the striking down of Charles Sumner in the Senate Chamber itself ”

“ In England men write to the Times; in America we write to many papers and we complain [81] endlessly. This would evidently be impossible under a despotic Government, and it sometimes seems as if we indulged too freely in depreciating our own country and its institutions. Yet deep down in the hearts of our people is a love of our native land which flames forth brightly on great occasions. The country which produced the “Battle Hymn” is not lacking in true patriotism. So long as our people use it to express their deepest emotions we need fear no serious treason to the Republic. ”

“ The French national hymn appeals to us by its wonderfully stirring music more than by the words. We can imagine how the latter aroused to a frenzy of feeling the men of the French Revolution, when they rose to throw off the yoke of centuries of oppression and misrule. Feudalism perished in France to the fiery music of the “Marseillaise.” Slavery died in America to the old “John Brown” tune, as slow and steadfast in movement as the Northern race who sang it.
[98] In our war lyric we seem to hear an echo of the old cry, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” ”

“ We waited eighty years for our American National Anthem. At last God inspired an illustrious and noble woman to utter in undying verse the thought which we hope is forever to animate the soldier of the Republic. ”

“ THE appeal of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is so wide that it takes in all classes of mankind, all, at least, who love freedom.
Wherever rise the peoples,
Wherever sinks a throne,
The throbbing heart of freedom
Finds an answer in his own.
So wrote the poet Whittier of Samuel Gridley Howe, remembering his services to the Greeks, to the Poles and others. The lines are equally true of his wife, Julia Ward Howe, and of the spirit animating her war lyric. ”

“ She preached that stern and lofty courage of soul which shrinks neither from war nor from any other form of suffering and hardship and danger if it is only thereby that justice can be served. She embodied that trait more essential than any other in the make-up of the men and women of this Republic—the valor of righteousness. ”

“ The moment he “shook the Lion’s paw” he became free. Our law in these United States is founded on the English Common Law. Alas! the pro-slavery party succeeded in overthrowing it. No wonder that Senator Toombs, of Georgia, boasted that he would call the roll of his slaves under the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument. The fugitive-slave law gave him the power to do this, and thus make our boasted freedom of the soil only an empty mockery.
The vigilance committee did its work well, and for some time no runaway slaves were captured in Boston. ”

“ My father was too old for military service and no longer in vigorous health, being in his sixtieth year when the war broke out; my eldest brother was just thirteen years of age. Nevertheless she was brought into close touch with the activities of the great struggle from the beginning.
On the day when the news of the attack on Fort Sumter was received Dr. Howe wrote to Governor Andrew, offering his services:
“Since they will have it so—in the name of God, Amen! Now let all the governors and chief men of the people see to it that war shall not cease until emancipation is secure. ”

“ People who requested her to recite her war lyric at the close of a lecture did not realize the fatigue that it entailed upon a person no longer young and already weary with speaking. Yet I doubt if she ever refused, when it was possible for her to comply with the request. Not long before her death, some ladies, calling upon her at her summer home near Newport, begged her to recite then and there the “Battle Hymn.” She was loth to do so, feeling the solemn words were not at all in keeping with the light and pleasant chat of a morning visit. ”

“ Howe’s appeals to his countrymen. The greater part of his life was devoted to the healing arts of the good physician. Yet the portraits of him, taken during the tremendous struggle of the anti-slavery period, show a sternness not visible in his younger nor yet in his later days.
In her poem “A Rough Sketch” my mother described him as he seemed to her at this time:
A great grieved heart, an iron will,
As fearless blood as ever ran;
A form elate with nervous strength
And fibrous vigor,—all a man.
Charles Sumner came often to Green Peace when he was in Boston. We children greatly admired him. ”

“ When the encroachments of the slave power began to threaten seriously free institutions throughout the country, thinking men at the North saw that the time for political action had come. There were several early organizations which preceded the formation of the Republican party—the Liberty party, Conscience Whigs, Free-soilers, as they were called. My father belonged to the two latter, and I can well remember that my elder sister and I were nicknamed at school, “Little Free-Dirters.”
The election of Charles Sumner to the United States Senate was an important victory for the anti-slavery men. ”

“ The danger of our frequent fault-finding is that we thus allow our righteous indignation to evaporate in mere words.
Supineness in politics, an indolence which permits unworthy men to usurp the reins of government, is one of our great sins as a nation. Yet the corrupt manipulator who goes too far meets an uprising of popular indignation which thoroughly surprises him. ”

“ Only one exception do I know, and that is the most tremendous war song I can recall; even an outsider in time of peace can hardly read it without emotion. I mean, of course, Julia Ward Howe’s war song of the Republic, with the choral opening line,
‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.’
If that were ever sung upon a battle-field the effect must have been terrific.”
During the present war in Europe, an English lady has had a large number of copies of the “Hymn” printed and distributed, through the Young Men’s Christian Association, to the soldiers. ”

“ God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’
“The discourse was powerful and impressive. He reminded his hearers of his prophecy that the remaining years of slavery could be numbered on the fingers of one hand, and that he should lead a host of negro soldiers, arrayed in the national uniform, in the redemption of the country from the curse of slavery. A few days afterward the old Covenanter was dead!”
[77] To the Grand Army of the Republic Julia Ward Howe was especially dear. ”

“ The beauty of her voice was due to its careful training in the Italian school of singing in her youth. Doubtless the habit of public speaking also tended to preserve it.
She occasionally repeated “The Flag,” a more dramatic and more personal poem than the “Battle Hymn.” Her rendering of it, accordingly, was more dramatic.
On public occasions my mother was often introduced as “The author of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic.’” Sometimes the introducer would, by mistake, substitute the name of another war song, good of its kind, but hardly to be compared with my mother’s hymn. ”

“ When the congregation left their old place of worship and moved to the Back Bay, it required a tremendous effort on the part of the women of Boston to raise the necessary funds and to save the historic building from destruction. Here, in December, 1906, the Old South Chapter had a meeting where there was “much good speaking.” My mother recited her “Battle Hymn” and told them something of her Revolutionary ancestors. She remembered her forebears with affectionate pride as noble men and women whose example she strove to imitate.
A long life brings its penalties as well as its pleasures. ”

“ The “Battle Hymn” was the most notable of [48] these inspirations. In her Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Struggle she ascribes its composition to two causes—the religion of humanity and the passion of patriotism. The former was a plant of slow growth. In her tribute to Theodore Parker, [22] she tells us how this developed under his preaching, and how he prepared his hearers for the war of blood and iron that soon followed.
My mother had long cherished love for her country, but it burned more intensely when the war came, bursting into sudden flame after that memorable day with the soldiers. ”

“ Theodore Parker advocated the anti-slavery cause with great eloquence in the pulpit. He also belonged to my father’s vigilance committee and harbored fugitive slaves in his own home. To one couple of runaway negroes he presented a Bible and a sword—after marrying them legally—a thing not always done in the day of slavery. My father succeeded in sending away from Boston the man who attempted to carry them back to the South, and William and Ellen Croft found freedom in England. ”

“ In the same volume are verses entitled “Slave Eloquence” and “Slave Suicide.”
How did the children of the household feel during this period of “Sturm und Drang”? To the older ones, at least, it was a most exciting time. While we did not by any means know of all that was going on, we felt very strongly the electric current of indignation that thrilled through our home, as well as the stir of action. My father early taught us to love freedom and to hate slavery. He gave us, in brief, clear outline, the story of the aggressions of the slave power. ”

“ Howe, on the outbreak of the Civil War, consented to serve as a member of the U. S. Sanitary Commission, a volunteer organization of influential Union men, springing from a central association in New York City for the relief of the forces serving in the war, and consisting of a few Union ladies, one of whom, Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler, suggested the formation of a similar but [62] larger and wider-spread body of men, representing the Union sentiment of the whole North, into which her own society should be merged as one of—so it turned out—many branches. ”

“ Therefore I have striven to give to the present generation some idea of the fervor and ferment, the exaltation of spirit, that prevailed at that epoch among the soldiers of a great cause, especially as I saw it in our household.
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel. ”

“ The chorus was borne by the marching soldiers, who had [60] practised it in their drills at the Fort; indeed, it had been adapted from a camp-meeting hymn to a marching song, for which it is admirably fitted, by the bandmaster of Col. Webster’s regiment, and afterward revised by Dodworth’s military band, then the best in the country. It was this thrilling music, with its resounding religious chorus, which Mrs. Howe, in company with our Massachusetts Governor Andrew, heard near the Potomac, the next November, in the evening camps that encircled Washington. ”

“ My mother was so intimately associated with the woman movement that she was called upon to repeat her war lyric before many feminine audiences. We have spoken of her interest in women’s clubs. She was also interested in the patriotic societies, being a member of the D. A. R. and of the Colonial Dames of Rhode Island. One of the Boston chapters of the former is named in honor of the Old South Meeting-house, a venerated landmark of the city. ”

“ A band of twelve young ladies appear upon the platform. They wear the colors of ‘Old Glory,’ but after a new fashion, four of them being arrayed from head to foot in red, four in blue, and four in white. While the ‘John Brown’ tune is heard from the piano, they proceed to act in graceful dumb show the stanzas of my ‘Battle Hymn.’ How they did it I cannot tell, but it was a most lovely performance.” [30]
In the early days of the woman movement a hard struggle was necessary in order to secure for [85] girls the advantages of the higher education. ”

“ Thus it happened that my mother went to the national capital in their company in the late autumn of 1861. Mrs. Andrew, the Governor’s wife, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, and Mr. and Mrs. Edwin P. Whipple were also of the party.
As they drew near Washington they saw ominous signs of the dangers encompassing the city. Mrs. Howe noticed little groups of armed men sitting near a fire—pickets guarding the railroad, [42] her husband told her. For the Confederate Army was not far off, the Army of the Potomac lying like a steel girdle about Washington, to protect it. ”

“ It was a question with us [80] women, “Will our men prevail? Until they do, they will not come home.” How we blessed them when they did; how we blessed them with our prayers when they were on the battle-field. Those were times of sorrow; this is one of joy. Let us thank God who has given us these victories.’
“As Mrs. Howe was about to resume her seat the audience rose en masse, and from the dress-circle to the upper gallery rung a round of cheers.
“The audience remained standing while Mr. Hughes sang the stirring words of the hymn, and joined heartily in the chorus as by request. ”