On April 29, twelve days after assuming command, Maj. Newton moved his Tiger battalion to Fort Warren, and remained there a full month rendering unpaid volunteer service. Owing to the extreme shortage of trained soldiers, the Government was glad to have the services of the battalion at Boston’s most important fort. Old Andrew Fletcher has claimed that the song-writer of a nation is more influential even than the law-maker. So far as this is true, the 2d Company, the Tigers, have exerted a huge national influence. For while at Warren, it fell to the lot of their glee-club to originate one of America’s greatest war-songs, one which until “Marching thru Georgia” was composed, stood supreme, the song, “John Brown’s Body.” Both words and tune trace back to the 2d Company. The tune is an adaptation of a southern revival hymn familiar before the war; but is so complete a revision as to be practically an original composition. The words were written as a joke on Private John Brown of the Tigers, who always seemed a shining mark for the wit of his comrades, and whose name of course suggested the hero of Osawatomie and Harper’s Ferry. Fletcher Webster’s regiment, the 12th, was in process of recruiting at Fort Warren that month. This song, at first intended humorously, was taken up in serious earnest by Webster’s men, was sung a little later by them as they marched to Bull Run; and within a year hundreds of thousands in blue were firing their enthusiasm for battle with the great refrain, “His soul is marching on.” Ex-Col. Charles L. Holbrook proved his loyalty to his old command by accepting the lower office of Major on June 23, 1862. This responsibility he did not lay down until Oct. 13, 1862, when he led the 43d Reg. to war.