One of the most popular patriotic anthems of all time, this song is often performed at the funerals of American soldiers and statesmen, presidential nominating conventions and inaugurations (both Republican and Democrat), and at Independence Day church services and festivities. It was played during the Boston fireworks show on Wednesday, only a mile or so away from where its lyricist, Julia Ward Howe, is buried.
“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” originated during the Civil War. On November 17, 1861, Howe traveled with her husband, Samuel, then director of the Army’s Sanitary Commission, to inspect a Union camp outside Washington, DC. While there, she took notice of a particularly catchy marching song that the troops were fond of singing, called “John Brown’s Body (Lies A-Mouldering in the Grave).” The song memorializes John Brown, the radical abolitionist who was executed in 1859 after leading an unsuccessful raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), that killed fourteen men. Brown became a Union hero, praised by the pens of famous writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and even the French novelist Victor Hugo, whose open letter requesting a pardon for Brown was published by newspapers in both the U.S. and Europe. “His soul’s marching on!” the Union soldiers sung in refrain—until Howe rewrote the lyrics, that is.
She did so at the urging of a friend, the Reverend James Freeman Clarke, who was part of the traveling party that winter. “Why do you not write some good words for that stirring tune?” he suggested—something higher-minded, something grander and more poetic, not so coarse.
Howe’s solution was “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It carries the same rah-rah sentiment as the old song, with the added weight of biblical references to Christ’s judgment of the wicked. She penned the new lyrics overnight, and they were published two and a half months later, on the front page of the February 1862 edition of the Atlantic Monthly. Notice the conflation of Christian apocalyptic imagery with the Union military campaign of the 1860s.
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.
CHORUS:
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
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.
I never realized the central message of this song until I read through all five stanzas for the first time this week: the Union forces were instruments of divine judgment and retribution against the Confederate states for establishing and persisting in the evil institution of slavery.
Let’s take a look at how this message plays out in each stanza.
Stanza 1
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.
The picture of Jesus that emerges from these lyrics is not popular with most folks, because it is a picture of Jesus the angry, Jesus the vengeful, Jesus the judge. Words like “trampling,” “wrath,” “lightning,” and “sword” are not friendly words, but they are biblical descriptors of who Jesus is or will be. People are much more apt to embrace Sermon-on-the-Mount Jesus from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and ignore this other aspect of his person, which we find described mostly in the prophetic books and in the Book of Revelation. But to do so is untruthful, and an offense to Jesus himself.
“The grapes of wrath”
No, John Steinbeck did not originate this phrase, and neither did Julia Ward Howe. They were merely borrowing language from the biblical authors, who frequently compare God’s wrath to a winepress: when harvest time comes, God will cut down the ripe grapevines with a sickle and trample the grapes underfoot; their juices will be squeezed out into vats and poured out over the earth (Revelation 15-16). The grapes, of course, represent unrepentant sinners, and the wine their blood; the treading action represents God’s fury. This metaphor is developed the most thoroughly by the apostle John in the Book of Revelation (a revelation of what? of what Jesus Christ’s second coming will look like):
- Revelation 14:9-10: “A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: ‘If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath.’”
- Revelation 14:18-20: “Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle [the one “like a son of man,” v. 14], ‘Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.’ The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia [about 180 miles].”
- Revelation 19:15: “… he [Jesus] treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.”
But John wasn’t the only one who had these fearsome visions of Christ. The Jewish prophet Isaiah saw something very similar, about 800 years earlier: a crimson-stained figure, who looked as if he had been crushing grapes all day. After receiving this vision, Isaiah engaged in some Q&A with Jesus (Isaiah 63:1-6):
Who is this who comes from Edom, in crimsoned garments from Bozrah, he who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength?
“It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.”
Why is your apparel red, and your garments like his who treads in the winepress?
“I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me; I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath; their lifeblood spattered on my garments, and stained all my apparel. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come. I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold; so my own arm brought me salvation, and my wrath upheld me. I trampled down the peoples in my anger; I made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”
No, Isaiah, that’s not grape juice.
The other prophets, too, used the winepress metaphor. The author of Lamentations (possibly Jeremiah), in lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC, wrote, “In his winepress the Lord has trampled the Virgin daughter of Judah” (Lamentations 1:15). The prophet Joel recorded a “word of the Lord” in Joel 3:13: “Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full and the vats overflow—so great is their [the nations’] wickedness!” (This is God-of-the-future speaking either to his angels, or to his Son—I can’t tell.)
The image is gruesome, I know. I list all these examples only to show that John wasn’t alone in his characterization of Jesus as wrathful, as I’ve heard people claim.
What’s problematic about Howe’s adaptation of these passages, though, is that she strips away their context, which the Bible very explicitly establishes as Christ’s second coming—an event that will happen only once, at the end of human history. Their meaning doesn’t carry over to America’s domestic disputes. Howe writes that she has seen the glory of Christ’s second coming—in the Union troops. He has already started his trampling. In this revisioning of Scripture, she casts the Southerners as the divinely disfavored grapes, and the Northerners as the grape-crushers, the righteous sword-wielders, the marching truth. Apparently all those prophecies that fill the Christian Scriptures were fulfilled in 1865.
To claim that God is on either side of any war is not only presumptuous, it’s sinful. Sure, God waged war on other nations through Israel in Old Testament times, but that was for a specific purpose (Israel’s possession of the Promised Land); God does not work that way anymore, and even so, America is not God’s covenant people. And when he does return to Earth to wage war on his enemies, it will be he himself, not us, who does the crushing. (“Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” saith the Lord.)
“His terrible swift sword”
God—both Father and Son—are also associated with the sword in Scripture. Here are just a few examples:
- Deuteronomy 32:41: “When I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me.”
- Isaiah 66:15-16: “See, the LORD is coming with fire, and his chariots are like a whirlwind; he will bring down his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For with fire and with his sword the LORD will execute judgment on all people, and many will be those slain by the LORD.”
- Ezekiel 21:3-4: “This is what the LORD says [to Israel]: ‘I am against you. I will draw my sword from its scabbard and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked. Because I am going to cut off the righteous and the wicked, my sword will be unsheathed against everyone from south to north.’”
- Revelation 1:16: “In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword…”
- Revelation 2:16: “Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.”
Stanza 2
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.
In this stanza, Howe writes that Christ was in the watch-fires of the Union military camps, and more than that, that the camps they set up pleased him—they were altars of worship, erected in his name. And the worshippers are fully prepared—eager, even—to carry out the “righteous sentence” of death prescribed in Revelation for all God’s enemies. They’ll carry it out on God’s behalf.
In the Bible, the phrase “the day of the Lord” consistently refers to the day Christ will enact his final vengeance upon the earth (see the Blue Letter Bible concordance). But in this song, the day of the Lord is ushered in by the marching forward of the Union troops.
Stanza 3
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.”
This stanza is appalling. No wonder so many hymnals and recordings omit it. The gospel being shot forth from the barrels of rifles (“burnished rows of steel”)? Let’s spread the good news—bang, you’re dead. Unfortunately, this corrupt theology of “holy war” is responsible for thousands upon thousands of deaths, stretching centuries back. And here is Howe, perpetuating the lie. The Civil War was a holy war, she suggests, sanctioned by God to wipe out the sins (or rather, the sinners) of the nation; the North will be blessed, just as soon as they finish off all those who scorn their God.
And here is crushing of an even more climactic kind. The Southerners are now compared to Satan, God’s archenemy; their secession from the Union is akin to Satan’s rebellion, and will be punished accordingly (Genesis 3:15).
Stanza 4
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.
The Bible says that a series of trumpet blasts will precede the second coming of Christ (Zephaniah 1:14-16; Matthew 24:30-31; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52), to signal the start of a great battle (cf. Jeremiah 4:19; Ezekiel 7:14). And this trumpet won’t ever sound forth the call to retreat, because Christ is going to win.
In line 3, the speaker addresses his/her own soul. “Come on! Brave up!” he/she soliloquizes. “Respond to God’s call . . . by joining the Union cause!” Whereas in the Bible, the call of God and the soul’s response almost always refers to repentance and salvation, here it refers to a literal battle call.
Stanza 5
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.
Aw, how pretty. Lilies. Transfiguration. Freedom. This is the victory stanza.
The war context is obvious from the third line. Interestingly, though, the hymnal I grew up with (Majesty Hymns, Greenville, S.C.: Majesty Music, 1997), and in fact the majority of renditions, replace the word “die” with “live”: “As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free.” This has a much nicer ring to it, and a wider applicability. We can’t all go sacrifice our lives on the front lines (nor is that choice necessarily God-honoring in all cases), but we can make little sacrifices every day—our time, our money, our personal comfort, and so on—to serve the cause of Christ.
Conclusion
So, should we ban this song from our churches? Not necessarily, though I can see why others would say yes. Now that I know more about the song, it does make me a little uneasy to sing. But with the revisions that most churches make (dropping the second and third stanzas, with their explicit references to warfare, and reframing sacrifice in the final stanza in terms of a way of life rather than an act of death), the song reads more biblically—as an anticipation of Christ’s return, in all his conquering glory. He will vindicate his children; he will destroy sin and death; he will make his holiness known as never before; he will create a new heaven and a new earth; and he will rapture his children into the presence of the eternal, triune Godhead. Glory, glory, hallelujah, indeed! If we are going to sing it in church, though, I propose a title change. What about “The Battle Hymn of the Church”? (Seems obvious enough.)
Should we ban it from our country’s political gatherings? Probably. We shouldn’t fill our heads with the presumption that God is on our side, just because we’re America. We—as a nation, I mean—are not God’s chosen people. And even if we cut out the references to war-camp altars and “(gun)fiery gospels” and anything else that suggests that God is pleased with us when we kill in his name, it doesn’t make sense for non-Christians to celebrate end-times events. Why sing “Hallelujah” (literally “Praise the Lord”) if you don’t mean it?
The Jesus Question 
A few weeks ago I was sitting up in bed talking with my husband. It was late. I started hearing a choir, with music singing this song. Like it was playing in a car radio right outside our house (we live in the country in Southeast Texas). It was somewhere between midnight and 2:00 AM. I’ve never heard anything that nobody else couldn’t hear in my life. I wasn’t scared, though it was freaky, maybe because someone was there with me. Hasn’t happened since. I don’t know what to think?
I WAS PRAYING AND IT WAS AFTER MID-NIGHT AND SUDDENLY I BEGAN TO SING THIS SONG. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY. CURIOUSLY I LOOKED UP ON MY COMPUTER THE ADDITIONAL VERSES AND HISTORY OF THE SONG AND CAME ACROSS YOUR ENTRY. GOD HAS A MESSAGE FOR US ALL IN THESE LYRICS. SOMETHING TO PONDER.
Yes, it is a war song, pure and simple. That was its motivation. Why criticise it for being so effective?
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This idea of banning things that happened in our history needs to stop. It happened; and as Abraham Lincoln said God can neither be for and against something at the same time one ideology must win. Why are there wars because there is sin in our world and those who take away the gifts promised by God in the Bible must not be allowed to continue. Should we have allowed Hitler to continue or mousilini or Sadam or any of their same kind.This is not to say America or any nation is always right but we will be on the right path if we protect the innocent the oppressed and the down trodden there is a biblical principal for that.
I agree. “Tell it like it is!” “If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.”
Make the whole of American history available to all grade school students. That is ,
the American Indians thru contemporary politics.
I think your analysis has merit, but it’s limited in scope as to how this hymn was appropriated and applied. Also I would simply suggest (as an occasional poet, but hopefully not a “hack”) that Howe took poetic license and not necessarily prophetic import. However, it’s difficult not to overlook prophetic elements because of her heavy usage of biblical apocalyptic language, references, and metaphors.
Obviously you wrote this blog entry back in 2012, before Harvard Professor John Stauffer’s research and intriguing project on this very hymn.
See http://www.c-span.org/video/?322562-3/discussion-battle-hymn-republic
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I sent this link to all my relatives. It’s been a while since I’ve read such clear writing. It’s as if the Lord himself were writing it!
It’s clear and it’s informative . But God himself? Get outta here!
great analysis, thanks! I may reference some things in a college theology paper. I do think it’s amazing that as the USA has become fairly irreligious, we still sing this song. I personally believe that it was really destined to continue to warn people about the second coming of Jesus and to get your life in order.
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I am sorry, but I just don’t believe that the tune sprang spontaneously into life in 1861, and with such a pedestrian set of words. Dig back and I am sure you would find it with other texts over at least the preceding half-century.
The American civil war was fought with honest conviction to abolish a humanely corrupted nature.Slavery was an act of Hell.
Terror and war is a sword in the hands of the Eternal Almighty. “There is no peace unto the wicked says my Elohim”. The Almighty uses the wicked to slay the wicked.
I don’t believe the entire song was written to fit into the specific scenario of the Civil War, though written at the beginning of the conflict. Rather, as a poet, she would have been using the Nothern/Southern/Slavery situation as an analogy for Christ’s Second Coming and what will happen. How war in general is much like what to expect when facing God’s wrath at the End Time. Sure, I believe she put some specific Civil War sentiment into the lyrics to make a point and to make it identifiable to the public. But since it was at the very beginning of the war, she had no idea how it would develop, how long it would last, nor what the outcome would be. Poetry is full of analogy for every topic known to man. Even Bob Dylan has written lyrics with “take it as you want” inference. But this song is definitely Biblically-oriented.
It definitely does not belong in any church especially a Southern one. First, the war was not about slavery. Lincoln said this many times. In fact slavery existed in the North. Slaves were brought to America by the Northern states of New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island. Lincoln accepted West Virginia, slave state, into the union during the War. Second, Sherman’s Union troops burned homes, churches, murdered civilians, pillaged and took anything they wanted from mostly women and children who had to fend for themselves. They often put animal carcasses in a town’s water supply. The water would not be drinkable and would cause illness or death. So, singing a song about the Union destroying the South in the method used by Sherman should not be sung in any church.
West Virginia was controversially carved out of the state of Virginia by Virginians who were Union sympathizers, who intended their portion of the state to do away with slavery, since the existing state of Virginia had no intention of giving up slavery.
Well-written, interesting and informative article. We sang The Battle Hymn just today in church and, though I have also sung it on several other occasions, this time I found myself wanting to know more about its historical significance. Also, before our singing it today, the line “die to make men free” was quoted by the MD who serves as our song leader, and I thought she had made a mistake!
God may not have been with the Union, but I certainly hope he was against the Confederacy.
Yep…pretty sure He was NOT with the CSA.
Personally, I leave the interpretation of any poem to the author and seeing as she left none I dare say we really don’t know the construct of her thoughts.
Get people to look into what the Bible say . . . is a good thing.
Get people to cogitate on the Last Days . . . is an excellent thing.
Get people to hear Jesus in Revelation . . . is a miraculous thing . . . I would not object . . .
Each one has the opportunity to make an informed decision as to whose side we want to be on . . .
humble oneself in front of the Almighty Compassionate God or not . . .
Wrath was definitely displayed during the Civil War . . . but who was in CONTROL????
Answer lies in each reader’s heart . . .
Thankyou for the article. However as an Indian I can say that The Great United States of America surely has God’s favour. There is no other blessed country lik this one. As a person Who didn’t know the history of this song, O admired it and now that I read the Background I admire it even more. I do not necessarily connect the meaning of the lyrics to Civil War and the Killings but to the second coming of Christ. With that view this song is beautiful.
You are mistaken in that only Jesus Christ brings the vengeance. At the resurrection,.the saints shall judge the wicked and bring the vengeance of His Temple. It shall be “the sword of the LORD and of Gideon” and of Joshua and of Moses and of Deborah and of Jael and of Mary and of every true disciple of Jesus.
Who is she which looks forth, fair as the sun, clear as the moon and TERRIBLE as an army with banners.
Let the saints be joyful in glory, Let them sing aloud upon their beds. With the high praises of God in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people to bind theIr kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute the judgment written. This honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD!
You have some amazing insight as to helping others understand what the words to the old stanza mean- but I am heartbroken to see that you cannot see beyond. If Gods word is living and active that means that it moves with us in time- His word and Him are also not constrained to time. The hymn – I see as I read it- is a call to repentance and warning to ALL. It never said union or confederate though we know that was the time for which she wrote it. There is right and wrong- and His is truth. Slavery was an evil that had to be confronted. The issue may not be slavery today- but what of abortion? Please don’t discredit a beautiful call of repentance the Lord gave long ago bc you have added words in your heart that are not there. All of our life is a marching toward the day of Christ’s return. You do not and could not know Mrs Howe and understand the full intentions of her words.
I’m still puzzled about the line dealing with “transfiguring.” With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me. I don’t get it.. What’s this about?”
God was definitely on the side that wanted to free slaves. He condemns one person having ownership of another. While America is far from perfect, it is God that preserved this land and created this nation. By His hand we are granted freedoms most have never enjoyed in this world! Though the nation was founded despite some state supporting slavery, when it was His time, he rooted it out and the people became humble and repentant for not fighting against it. It is wrong. It is a sin. And if course, a God who loves all of His children would be on the side to fight against it.
I also believe Julia received direct revelation to write the words she did.
John L. –If there were any other literal meaning or spiritual interpretation to this song, why wasn’t it produced? There are always two sides to man’s story, but only one side to God’s point of view, which is the truth. The truth hurts! It’s “good” verses “evil”. Which side are you on? .Sing it or not sing it. Let Mrs. Howe have her day. Time and not man will reveal who is right. In the meanwhile be patient and “be ready”!
AMAZING piece of American History.
I don’t think I knew the history, the FULL history of this GREAT AND BEAUTIFUL, CHRISTIAN, PATRIOTIC HYMN.
INCREDIBLE!!!!
While this was incredible reading, if I may share some things: ROMANS 13 that the Apostle Paul wrote talks about the VENGEANCE OF GOD, AND that GOD’S Ministers of Judgment do not bear the sword in vein, meaning Law Enforcement and Military, GOD raises up HIS men and women to deal out GOD’S JUSTICE, that the evil and wicked would be afraid.
Granted, while we are NOT to war and fight physically to spread the GOSPEL OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST, HE MOST CERTAINLY DOES INDEED raise up BRAVE, COURAGEOUS men and women to destroy and punish and bring about HIS RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT, WRATH, AND PUNISHMENT upon the wicked, dethrone dictators and tyrants, STOP criminals and terrorists, and ESPECIALLY LIBERATE the oppressed. I think the song writer was implying MORE about LIBERATING the oppressed rather than making war to spread the GOSPEL.
The 3rd Stanza, reading fiery GOSPEL writ in rows of steel(muskets and bayonets), I picture a young man standing in a row at attention, musket in one hand, HOLY BIBLE in another reading the GOSPEL of our LORD, NOT fighting and waring to spread the GOSPEL, but to LIBERATE the oppressed, to FREE the slaves. “If the SON makes you free, ye are FREE INDEED.” I know that’s talking about spiritually, FREE from the control and power and bondage of sin, death, hell, the evil one, and temptation, NO longer obeying the lusts of the flesh, eyes, and pride of life.
ALSO, though, physically, that GOD raised up GOD believing, fearing, loving men to bring FREEDOM to the slaves, to LIBERATE THE OPPRESSED, and that meant the only way is to defeat the evil confederacy of the south.
Lastly, the thunder of the muskets and cannons, … aren’t James and John called the “sons of thunder?!” Meaning bold, courageous, loud, outspoken, vocal!
There is usually more than one meaning in lyrics and words of songs, artists and painters paintings, symbols, tattoos, numbers, phrases, terminology, slang, etc.
The writer of this article clearly knows little of scripture, history, or Julia Howe’s song’s darker history, most of which has been erased from internet sources. Godly & ungodly people fought on both sides of that horrible war. Only a small percentage of Southerners owned slaves. Confederate soldiers who fought the war were generally poor & were conscripted by the government & had no choice but to fight. In addition, most everyone would fight an army invading their homeland. Some people in northern states also owned slaves. Lincoln may have claimed to hate slavery but he, himself, owned slaves. People love to say, oh, those were his wife’s slaves. However, in the 1800s & beyond, when a woman married, all of her property immediately became transferred to her husband. U S Grant also owned slaves. His wife’s father had willed her slaves, which became her husband’s property upon their marriage. Maryland & Kentucky, part of the Union, were also slave states. In addition, the industrial North had a system of virtual slavery. It was call the “company store.” Large industries like steel mills & manufacturing, etc., provided poor whites & black former slaves with sub-par housing, & they set up accounts for them at the company stores where they changed them exorbitant prices for basic necessities. They paid workers starvation wages, thus insuring they would never pay their debts to the store & would never be able to leave. Slaves forever. And, when providers were killed in work accidents due to hazardous working conditions, wives & children were turned out of their “homes,” belongings confiscated, & sent to the streets to starve & be prayed upon. So pray tell, all the self-righteous out there, how does a righteous God send judgment on one group of sinners & turn a blind to another group of sinners. How does he refuse to show mercy to one group of soldiers who are only trying to protect their homes & families &, instead, give all of his mercy to the invading soldiers who, while killing, also steal, rape, & pillage? Doesn’t sound like the God I know. I don’t believe God “took sides.” I believe he saw individuals on both sides who belonged to him. I believe the North won the war, not on principle, but they had the manufacturing plants for munitions, supplies, food, etc., they had the largest supplies of food, & they had a constant source of re-supply of troops from immigrants from Europe. They also had the great benefit of the US military establishment already trained to fight. The most important thing, though, was the fight was on Confederate territory. The Union had already won the war before it started. It was always just a matter of time. Scripture says we are under grace, not law, since Jesus died. If God had been punishing the South, he’d also have to punish all of us every day for our sins. But he doesn’t-because we are in the age of grace.
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I would say the Hymn is referring to the U.S. Civil War, a horrifying time when we in the U.S. were killing each other. It compares this carnage to the end times when Jesus will return to earth with his angels and engage hostile forces, as prophesied in Isaiah 63:3 ,Revelation 14:19-20, 19:15. It alludes to the ancient winepresse, which was stone-lined trough in which grapes were squished barefoot, causing the reddish juice (“blood) of the grapes to flow down into a clay pot.
Miss Lynn Collins, in her argument, makes too many false claims and erroneous assumptions. The first of these is her stating that ” only a small portion of Southerners owned slaves. ” That’s true, but most southerners couldn’t afford them. The heart and soul of slavery in the Americas was in the south. That’s where – for decades – they had been shipped, sold, and were forced to endure the most cruel and brutal types of treatment. At the beginning of the Civil War there were said to be close to 4,000,000 slaves in the south. I think we can safely say there weren’t nearly that many in the north and they weren’t managed in such an inhumane manner as they were in the south. There were also abolitionists in the north and others, such as Harriet Tubman, who managed to help hundreds of slaves escape the planations with the help of the underground railroad. Slavery flourished at this time in the south because of the incredibly wealthy plantation owners. You could easily draw a comparison between these men and today’s Republican billionaires who manipulate and control different facets of our democracy – such as deciding into which neighborhood or zone certain blocs of voters – will be forced to become a part of. The most ridiculous claim Miss Lynn makes is the one about all ( ( or most of ) northern workers being slaves themselves becasue of the low pay and poor working conditions they had to suffer. What king of working conditions and pay do you think poor white field hands had to endure ? Finally, you proposed that all confederae soldiers ” had no choice but to fight.” That is really LAME b.s. Many of them deserted before the war was over. When the Vietnam war was raging away many U.S. citizens went to Canada rather that be a part of it. Any southerner could have refused to fight. The stand you take in your argument is LAME !! And, finally, you claim that today we are in a ” state of grace ” presently. Tell that to the 44 innocents who died recently from the bomb blast in the middle east. LAME !!!
As an Englishman interested in The American Civil War, its causes and consequences, I can only observe from some of these responses that in a way it is still going on!
In the same way, but in different grou a kind of ‘Civil War ‘ is breaking out with the rise , and likely return, of Donald Trump. Will the same chaos occur and tear your country apart once more?