She is known as the founder of “Mothers Day.”  During the Civil War, she penned the famous words for ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”  She is the renowned Julia Ward Howe, born in 1819 and died in 1910.  Her story is an amazing revelation that GOD Almighty was pleased to give her at a time in American history, when our country was torn apart by war that would decide the fate of the nation.  Here is her story: 

   During a public review of troops outside Washington, D.C. on Upton Hill, Virginia in 1861, Julia Ward Howe and her escort, the Reverend James Freeman Clark, heard the soldiers singing “John Brown’s Body,”, a favorite marching song of the troops, as they passed in review where Abraham Lincoln stood.  Later that day, she met Abraham Lincoln at the White House.  The Reverend Clark suggested to Howe that she write new words for the fighting men’s song.  Staying at the Willard Hotel in Washington on the night of November 18, 1861, Howe awoke with the words of the song in her mind and in near darkness wrote the verses of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”  Of the writing of the lyrics, Howe vividly remembered:

“I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly.  I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind.  Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to myself, ‘I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep again and forget them.’  So, with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed, and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered to have used the day before.  I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.”

Howe’s “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was first published on the front page of The Atlantic Monthly of February 1862.  Here then are the words to the famous “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” words that speak of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the truth of the ages that marches on, as we render praise to God Almighty:

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 fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah (praise God)! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps, They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: “As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat: Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.

Glory. glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. 

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory on the morning on the wave, He is wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave, So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave, Our God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Our God is marching on.