  No prophet is ever able to foretell what will catch the popular ear. The original John Brown song, “John Brown died on the scaffold for the slave; Dark was the hour when we dug his hallowed grave; Now God avenges the life he gladly gave, Freedom reigns to-day! Glory, glory hallelujah, Glory, glory hallelujah, Glory, glory hallelujah. Freedom reigns to-day! “John Brown sowed and the harvesters are we; Honor to him who has made the bondsman free; Loved evermore shall our noble ruler be, Freedom reigns to-day! “John Brown’s body lies mouldering in the grave; Bright o’er the sod let the starry banner wave; Lo! for the million he periled all to save, Freedom reigns to-day! “John Brown’s soul through the world is marching on; Hail to the hour when oppression shall be gone; All men will sing in the better day’s dawn, Freedom reigns to-day! “John Brown dwells where the battle’s strife is o’er; Hate cannot harm him, nor sorrow stir him more; Earth will remember the martyrdom he bore, Freedom reigns to-day! “John Brown’s body lies mouldering in the grave; John Brown lives in the triumph of the brave; John Brown’s soul not a higher joy can crave, Freedom reigns to-day!” The more popular, if not more worthy, song of John Brown’s Body seems to have been of Massachusetts origin at the commencement of the Civil War. It was first sung in 1861. When the Massachusetts Volunteers, commanded by Colonel Fletcher Webster, a son of the famous Daniel Webster, were camped on one of the islands in Boston Harbor, some of the soldiers amused themselves by adapting the words,— “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, His soul is marching on. Glory, glory hallelujah, His soul is marching on,” to a certain air. Mr. Charles Sprague Hall, who is the author of the lines as finally sung, says that when the soldiers first began to sing it the first verse was the only one known. He wrote the other verses, but did not know where the first one came from. The way was opened for this song through a campaign song heard from the lips of the Douglas, and the Bell, and the Everett Campaign Clubs, who, in order to spite Governor John A. Andrew, the famous war governor of Massachusetts, sang the following lines as they were marching through the streets of Boston, with their torches in hand,— “Tell John Andrew, Tell John Andrew, Tell John Andrew John Brown’s dead. Salt won’t save him, John Brown’s dead.” These lines are supposed to have been an imitation of the doggerel,— “Tell Aunt Rhody, Tell Aunt Rhody, Tell Aunt Rhody The old goose is dead. Salt won’t save him, The old goose is dead.” Great stress having been laid by the opponents of Governor Andrew upon the fact that John Brown was dead, the authors of the song spoken of took good care to assert that, while “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, His soul is marching on. HARPER’S FERRY This was the answer of those that sympathized with John Brown, a song which they flung at those who seemed to take delight in the fact that he was dead. Thane Miller, of Cincinnati, heard the melody, which is perhaps the most popular martial melody in America, in a colored Presbyterian church in Charleston, South Carolina, about 1859, and soon after introduced it at a convention of the Young Men’s Christian Association in Albany, New York, with the words,— “Say, brothers will you meet us, Say, brothers will you meet us, Say, brothers will you meet us, On Canaan’s happy shore? By the grace of God we’ll meet you, By the grace of God we’ll meet you, By the grace of God we’ll meet you, Where parting is no more.” Professor James E. Greenleaf, organist of the Harvard Church in Charlestown, found the music in the archives of that church, and fitted it to the first stanza of the present song. It has since been claimed that the Millerites, in 1843, used the same tune to a hymn, one verse of which is as follows,— “We’ll see the angels coming Through the old churchyards, Shouting through the air Glory, glory hallelujah! Whatever may have been the origin of the melody, when fitted by Greenleaf to the first stanza of John Brown’s Body, it became so great a favorite with the Glee Club of the Boston Light Infantry that they asked Mr. Hall to write the additional stanzas. As has been the case with popular tunes in every age, verses have been often added to it to meet the occasion. While the words are not of a classical order, the air is of that popular kind which strikes the heart of the average man. During the Civil War it served to cheer and inspire the Union soldiers in their camps and on the march, and was sung at home at every popular gathering in town or country. It seemed to be just what the soldiers needed at the time, and served its purpose far better than would choicer words or more artistic music. No song during all the war fired the popular heart as did John Brown’s Body. It crossed the sea and became the popular street song in London. The Pall Mall Gazette of October 14, 1865, said: “The street boys of London have decided in favor of John Brown’s Body, against My Maryland, and The Bonnie Blue Flag. The somewhat lugubrious refrain has excited their admiration to a wonderful degree, and threatens to extinguish that hard-worked, exquisite effort of modern minstrelsy, Slap Bang.” After the original song had gained world-wide notoriety, the following words were written by “Old John Brown lies a-mouldering in the grave, Old John Brown lies slumbering in his grave— But John Brown’s soul is marching with the brave, His soul is marching on. Glory, glory hallelujah! Glory, glory hallelujah! Glory, glory hallelujah! His soul is marching on. “He has gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord, He is sworn as a private in the ranks of the Lord— He shall stand at Armageddon, with his brave old sword, When Heaven is marching on. “He shall file in front where the lines of battle form— He shall face the front where the squares of battle form— Time with the column and charge with the storm, Where men are marching on. “Ah, foul tyrants! do you hear him where he comes? Ah, black traitors! do you know him as he comes? In thunder of the cannon and roll of the drums, As we go marching on. “Men may die, and moulder in the dust— Men may die, and arise again from dust, Shoulder to shoulder, in the ranks of the just, When Heaven is marching on.” But Mr. Brownell has shared the same fate with Miss Proctor, and his song and hers are only curiosities to-day, which show how arbitrary the popular will is when once the heart or the imagination is really captured. Mr. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., writing to Mr. James T. Fields, the famous Boston litterateur, said: “It would have been past belief had we been told that the almost undistinguishable name of John Brown should be whispered among four millions of slaves, and sung wherever the English language is spoken, and incorporated into an anthem to whose solemn cadences men should march to battle by the tens of thousands.” text decoration DANIEL DECATUR EMMETT |
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