American Unitarian Hymn Writers and HymnsFoote, Henry Wilder
Religion
American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns
Foote, Henry Wilder
Hymn writers; Hymns, English -- History and criticism; Unitarian Universalist churches -- Hymns -- History and criticism
All of Hosmer’s hymns in recent use will be found in both the
Unitarian collections—_The New Hymn and Tune Book_, 1914, and _Hymns
of the Spirit_, 1937, except where initials indicate one or the other
book, as follows:—Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 (N.H.T.B.), 8, 10 (N.H.T.B.),
12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 (H.S.), 29
(H.S.), 30, 31, 32, 34 (H.S,), 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43. Nos.
10, 17, 24, 30 and 40 are included in the Protestant Episcopal
_Hymnal_, 1940.
J. 1650
H.W.F.
Howe, Mrs. Julia (Ward), New York, New York, May 27, 1819—October 17,
1910, Boston, Massachusetts. Married Samuel Gridley Howe on April 26,
1843. She was a woman with a distinguished personality and intellect;
an Abolitionist and active in social reforms; author of several books
in prose and verse. The latter include _Passion Flower_, 1854; _Words
of the Hour_, 1856; _Later Lyrics_, 1866; and _From a Sunset Ridge_,
1896. She became famous as the author of the poem entitled “Battle
Hymn of the Republic,” beginning,
_Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord_, which, in
spite of its title, was written as a patriotic song and not as a hymn
for use in public worship, but which has been included in many
American hymn books. It was written on November 19, 1861, while she
and her husband, accompanied by their pastor, Rev. James Freeman
Clarke, _q.v._, minister of the (Unitarian) Church of the Disciples,
Boston, were visiting Washington soon after the outbreak of the Civil
War. She had seen the troops gathered there and had heard them,
singing “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave” to a
popular tune called “Glory, Hallelujah” composed a few years earlier
by William Steffe of Charleston, South Carolina, for Sunday School
use. Dr. Clarke asked Mrs. Howe if she could not write more uplifting
words for the tune and as she awoke early the next morning she found
the verses forming in her mind as fast as she could write them down,
so completely that later she re-wrote only a line or two in the last
stanza and changed only four words in other stanzas. She sent the poem
to _The Atlantic Monthly_, which paid her $4 and published it in its
issue for February, 1862. It attracted little attention until it
caught the eye of Chaplain C. C. McCabe (later a Methodist bishop) who
had a fine singing voice and who taught it first to the 122d Ohio
Volunteer Infantry regiment to which he was attached, then to other
troops, and to prisoners in Libby Prison after he was made prisoner of
war. Thereafter it quickly came into use throughout the North as an
expression of the patriotic emotion of the period.
J. 1652
H.W.F.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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