Being a musician, a tune for the song easily came to Kittredge's mind, and after copying both words and music he went at once to Lynn, Massachusetts, to visit his friend, Asa Hutchinson, one of the famous Hutchinson family, who then lived at Bird's Nest Cottage, at High Rock. After they had looked it over together, they called in John Hutchinson, who still lives, the "last of the Hutchinsons," to sing the solo. Asa Hutchinson sang the bass, and the children joined in the chorus. Kittredge at once made a contract with Asa Hutchinson to properly arrange and publish the song for one-half the profits. The Hutchinson family were just then giving a series of torchlight concerts on the crest of old High Rock, with the tickets at the exceedingly popular price of five cents. The people from all the towns about turned out _en masse_. They had half a dozen or more ticket sellers and takers stationed at the various approaches to the rock. During the day they would wind balls of old cloth and soak them in oil. These, placed in pans on the top of posts at intervals, would burn quite steadily for an hour or more, and boys stood ready to replace them when they burned out. The audience gathered in thousands every night during this remarkable series of concerts, and on the very night of the day Kittredge had brought his new hymn, _Tenting on the Old Camp Ground_ was sung for the first time from the crest of High Rock. Like so many other afterward famous songs, it was hard to find a publisher at first, but the immense popularity which sprang up from the singing of the hymn about Boston soon led a Boston publisher to hire some one to write another song with a similar title, and a few weeks later the veteran music publisher, Ditson, brought out the original. Its sale reached many hundreds of thousands of copies during the war, and since then it has retained its popularity perhaps as completely as any of our war lyrics. It has been specially popular at reunions of soldiers, and every Grand Army assembly calls for it. Many a time I have seen the old veteran wiping away the tears as he listened to the singing of the second verse:-- "We've been tenting to-night on the old camp ground, Thinking of days gone by, Of the loved ones at home, that gave us the hand, And the tear that said 'Good-bye.'" [Illustration] [Illustration: _JULIA WARD HOWE_] _THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC._ 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 loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on. I have seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I have read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps; His day is marching on.