Nov. 19, 1861

Nov. 19, 1861: Chief Opothleyahola of the Creek Nation, in Oklahoma, wants to remain a Union supporter, refuses to sign the treaty with the Confederacy along with the rest of the Creek nation, plus the Seminole, the Chickasaw, the Choctaw, and the Cherokee. Opothleyahola and his followers, plus several hundred freed slaves, head north over the Oklahoma prairies to Kansas, pursued by Col. Douglas Cooper of the CSA, who leades a brigade of Texans and Indian regiments. On this date, Cooper’s mounted troops catch up with the Unionist Creeks, and kill a number of them, driving them back on the banks of the Red Fork of the Arkansas river.

–George Templeton Strong, in his journal, writes:

"It would seem that our seizure of Mason and Slidell is within the rules of international law as laid down by the British authorities and supported by British precedent. But I fear John Bull will show his horns and that we shall have increased ill-feeling on both sides. Foreign war would be an ugly complication of our internal disease."

–Julia Ward Howe, a New York socialite and activist, visits Washington, DC, in the company of her husband, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, their minister Rev. James Freeman Clarke, and other friends. They take a carriage across the Potomac to visit the Army camps. As a regiment of Wisconsin troops marches by, singing "John Brown's Body Lies a-Moulderin' in the Grave," Rev. Clarke remarks to the others how much he wishes that someone would write more inspiring words to "that stirring tune."

That night, in her hotel room at Willard's, on Pennsylvania Avenue, Mrs. Howe awakes in the wee hours of the morning. Looking out her window, she sees the campfires of troops camped on the Washington Mall nearby. She later describes what happened:

"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."

Here are the words of the poem as she finished it, and which will be published in The Atlantic Monthly in the following February:

The Battle Hymn of the Republic

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.

(Chorus)
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."

(Chorus)
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.

(Chorus)
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.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of 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.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.