One of the "folk songs" that evolved through, in effect, a number of incarnations is the song we know as The Battle Hymn of the Republic, with lyrics by Julia Ward Howe.

Ironically, the genealogy of the tune itself was traced (fairly early on, I believe). The Battle Hymn of the Republic became such an anthem for northern and pro-Union supporters, that it probably excelled all other competitors in its own time, and has shone down the subsequent corridors of history as a picture into those turbulent times in our national history.

Yet the tune originated not in the North, but in the South. Its author, in fact, was a South Carolinian, born in, can you guess it -- Charleston.

This black man's name was William Steffe, and his one claim to fame, it seems, was that among everything else in his life he happened to be the preacher who composed the tune that we associate with the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Steffe was a camp meeting preacher of the type that became so popular in the vast middle part of America, both north and south, from (we are told) approximately 1800 onward -- perhaps not ending till the second world war. America was (at least in the great heartland) a sprawling Bible Belt region. This backwoods phenomenon has been much studied, it is such a uniquely American "thing."

Steffe appears to have been one of the gifted or "charismatic" types that emerged as it were out of nowhere. He had talents, no doubt, and travelled where needed or welcomed. Those were slavery days in the South, and preachers walked a tightrope in remaining within the good graces of the white establishment, while also appealing to the "spiritual needs" of the black folks who flocked to the meetings.

The more talented preachers stradled the line between black and white, and found their appeal reach out simultaneously to the poor whites as much as to the blacks.

Steffe wrote the music of this song about 1853 to accompany his exhortations in the brush arbor and slave camp meetings. Revivalism was a mix of encouragement, emotion, entertainment, spiritual exhortation, and just sheer excitement in those days with so little else to inspire and move them. Steffe, this Negro exhorter from the deep South (Charleston) penned the music with the words "Brother will you meet me by Canaan's happy shore."

I do not know if there was a subtextual meaning as we know sometimes occurred. Canaan may have referred to actual real-world freedom, as in the North, or in Canada. There were numerous cases, according to those who know, of such hidden meanings in the slave gospel milieu.

Slave narratives collected after the war abound with cases of black sages, or holy women, or wise ones, who asserted that freedom was a-coming, or that it was just th-other side of Jordan.

Now it appears that some of those ecstatic utterances were inspired prophecies by otherwise quite ignorant medicine women or healers or African witch doctors and the like -- holy women and men who somehow saw beyond, or into the beyond.

Steffe's gospel ditty was so catchy and memorable that it soon was being hummed far and wide. It swiftly became a favorite around the campfires of the free drifters and roustabout transients wandering through America's backwoods.

One of these drifters, Thomas Bishop of Vermont, took the song with him as he travelled northwards toward Boston, where he joined the Union army as an infantryman.

Bishop was one of Robert E. Lee's soldiers in 1859 when he was sent to thwart the abolitionist John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry (then Virginia).
John Brown: God's Angry Man

Many northerners were later to become enthralled by the nobility in death of the idealist (but slightly craxy) John Brown. Even more so, apparently, was Thomas Bishop, who took the Steffe tune and immortalized John Brown with the words "John Brown's body lies a mould'ring in the grave."

The "new" tune quickly spread through the ranks of Yankee soldiers as the nation drifted toward confrontation (if Lincoln were elected) and toward war. But the soliders irreverently altered the words, and anonymously added verses continued to embellish the song, till it was a rambling mix of verses about bawdy women, easy liquor, and brawling drunkards -- which spiced the soldiers' lives and imaginations.

So it went in those last drawn out months leading up to Fort Sumter and the precipitous War that followed.

Troops flooded into Lincoln's Washington as Southern statesmen packed their bags and loaded their wagons to head South to the newly forming "nation" on the opposite bank of the Potomac. As they marched and drilled, the troops would sing their nasty versions of Steffe's formerly gospel song.

In the autumn of 1861, Julia Ward Howe, both anti-slavery, ardently patriotic and also highly religious (evangelical) was attending a public parade and review of Union troops in Washington DC. On her way back to Willard's Hotel she found her carriage delayed by marching regiments. She was appalled by the unspeakably obscene song of the soldiers as they marched. She felt inspired to pen new words, the words we know today (Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord).

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 to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Of the writing of the lyrics, Howe remembers, "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."

---

Last Moments of John Brown

Last Moments of John Brown
Thomas Hovenden is known for his famous portrait, The Last Moments of John Brown. Hovenden was an Irishman whose parents died in the Irish Potato famine in County Cork Ireland. Growing up as an orphan, he showed artistic gifts at an early age. He came to America as a young man and married into a Philadelphia Quaker family with strong abolitionist sympathies. He died at age 54 while attempting to save a ten-year old girl from an onrushing locomotive. He was an exceptionally talented artist with worldwide renown. He made his home with his wife's family estate (Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia) which had been, before emancipation, a station on the Underground Railroad. Their barn, later used as Hovenden's studio, had been known as "Abolition Hall" due to its use for anti-slavery meetings.

Following from the American Experience (PBS)

Two versions of "John Brown's Body"

Old John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But though he lost his life in struggling for the slave,
His truth is marching on.

Chorus:
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on!

John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave;
Kansas knew his valor when he fought her rights to save;
And now though the grass grows green above his grave,
His truth is marching on.
Chorus

He captured Harpers Ferry with his nineteen men so few,
And he frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled through and through,
They hung him for a traitor, themselves a traitor crew,
But his truth is marching on.
Chorus

John Brown was John the Baptist for the Christ we are to see,
Christ who of the bondsman shall the Liberator be;
And soon throughout the sunny South the slaves shall all be free.
For his truth is marching on.
Chorus

The conflict that he heralded, he looks from heaven to view,
On the army of the Union with its flag, red, white, and blue,
And heaven shall ring with anthems o'er the deeds they mean to do,
For his truth is marching on.
Chorus

Oh, soldiers of freedom, then strike while strike you may
The deathblow of oppression in a better time and way;
For the dawn of old John Brown was brightened into day,
And his truth is marching on.
Chorus

********************

(here's a second version)
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
But his soul goes marching on.

Chorus:
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!
His soul goes marching on.

He's gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord
He's gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord
He's gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord
His soul goes marching on.
Chorus

John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back
John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back
John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back
His soul goes marching on.
Chorus

John Brown died that the slaves might be free
John Brown died that the slaves might be free
John Brown died that the slaves might be free
But his soul goes marching on.
Chorus

The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down
The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down
The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down
On the grave of old John Brown.
Chorus

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/johnbrown/brownbody.html