But 'His soul goes marching on,' in the form of a diminutive Scotsman in the Union army, who happened to share the same name.Д«y November 1861, the early enthusiasm of the Civil War had faded into a grim appreciation of the magnitude of the struggle. 'John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,' refers to the latter-day Spartacus. The story began with a campfire spiritual in the 1850s called 'Say, Brothers, Will You Meet Us?' Even in these pre-Internet days, the catchy tune went viral and mutated into the song 'John Brown's Body.' Was this about the famous anti-slavery terrorist, John Brown, who attacked Harper's Ferry in 1859, hoping to spark a slave rebellion, before being captured and hanged? Based on ideas from my new book, How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War, we can see how the nation's experience is intimately connected to this crusader's cry. Its vivid portrait of sacred violence captures how Americans fight wars, from the miniГ© balls of the Civil War to the shock and awe of Iraq. The 'Battle Hymn' has inspired suffragists and labor organizers, civil rights leaders and novelists-like John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath.Д«ut most of all, the 'Battle Hymn' is a warrior's cry and a call to arms. We have turned to it repeatedly in national crises. The song, now approaching its 150th anniversary, is a hallowed treasure and a second national anthem. It was a fitting finale to the life of a great American because the story of the 'Battle Hymn' is the story of the United States. The last line that King ever spoke in public came from a song, 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' written by Julia Ward Howe in 1861. I'm not fearing any man.' And then he closed in his lyrical voice: 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.' The next day he lay dying on the second floor of the Lorraine Motel, struck in the cheek by an assassin's bullet.

'I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land,' King announced. rose to speak in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee.

Civil war music