The “Battle Hymn of the Republic†Marches On
How a Melody Evolved to Serve the Changing Needs of Progressive Americans
by
Sarah King
On October 16, 1859, abolitionist John Brown led an interracial group of men on a raid on the armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown hoped to arm slaves and instigate a slave rebellion. The mission failed, and Brown became a villain in the South, but his trial and execution for treason made him a martyr in the North and inspired one of the United States’ most enduring national hymns. Long after Brown was gone, the melody continued to serve the mission.
John Brown
Brown’s commitment to abolishing slavery was longstanding. Following the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which stated that Kansas’s admission to the Union as a free or slave state would be decided by popular sovereignty, Brown and his family joined the flood of Americans who moved to Kansas, hoping to tip the scales. A series of armed conflicts between pro- and anti-slavery migrants ensued, with so much bloodshed that the years-long episode was dubbed “Bleeding Kansas.†In 1856 Brown participated in one particularly violent incident, known as the Pottawatomie Massacre. In retaliation against a pro-slavery attack, Brown led an anti-slavery group in killing five pro-slavery men by hacking them to death. Brown – like most assailants in Bleeding Kansas – evaded capture. In total, 200 people died over the slavery question in Kansas in the first half of 1856 alone.
http://ushistoryscene.com/article/battle-hymn-of-the-republic/
