Mike Moxcey ©2005

The Battle Hymn of the Republic

This is a march tune. Each strum is really two beats. The verse and the chorus use the same chord pattern. 

I / / / | IV / I / | / / / / | I V I / |

  1. 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 loos’d the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword,
    His truth is marching on.

    2. ch Glory, glory Hallelujah!
    Glory, glory Hallelujah!
    Glory, glory Hallelujah!
    His truth is marching on.

  2. 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.

  3. I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish`d 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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 die to make men free,
    while God is marching on.

This song was written by Julia Ward Howe in 1861 as a poem for Atlantic Monthly for five dollars. The magazine called it Battle Hymn of the Republic. It was put to the music of John Brown’s Body and sung as an anthem for the Northern forces of America’s Civil War.

John Brown’s Body

This song was written about an Abolitionist who died trying to free slaves in Virginia. It was put to the tune of an even older camp-meeting hymn: Oh brothers, will you meet us on Canaan's happy shore?
  1. John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave (3x)
    His soul goes marching on

  2. John Brown died that the slaves might be free, (3x)
    But his soul is marching on!

  3. The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down (3x)
    On the grave of old John Brown
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