Marching Song of the First Arkansas
Encyclopedia
"Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment" is one of the few Civil War
-era song
s inspired by the lyrical structure of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic
" and the tune of "John Brown's Body
" that is still performed and recorded today. The "Marching Song" has been described as "a powerful early statement of black pride, militancy, and desire for full equality, revealing the aspirations of black soldiers for Reconstruction as well as anticipating the spirit of the civil rights movement
of the 1960s." The song's lyrics are attributed to the regiment's white officer, Captain Lindley Miller. An almost identical song, “The Valiant Soldiers,” is attributed to Sojourner Truth
in post-Civil War editions of her Narrative. Recent scholarship supports Miller as the original author, or at least compiler, of the “Marching Song.”
had passed a confiscation act and a militia act in July 1862, permitting freed slaves to serve in the Union Army
, President Abraham Lincoln
was reluctant to enlist blacks as soldiers. After Union Army setbacks in battles during 1862, Lincoln announced in September that effective January 1, 1863, all slaves in Confederate
territory would be free. Beginning in 1863, recruitment of black soldiers proceeded with Lincoln's approval.
The First Arkansas
Volunteer Infantry Regiment (African Descent) began recruiting among former slaves in Helena, Arkansas
following Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
of January 1863, and was officially established on May 1. In June the regiment saw action at Mound Plantation, Mississippi
, and at Goodrich's Landing, Louisiana
, where the unit remained through January 1864. The unit then moved to Haines Bluff near Vicksburg, Mississippi
until May 1864. The Union Army standardized the varied names of colored regiments as “United States Colored Troops
” (U.S.C.T.), and the First Arkansas became the “46th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry” on May 11, 1864.
Lindley Miller was the son of Jacob W. Miller
, who served as a U.S. Senator of the Whig Party
from New Jersey
between 1841 and 1853. His mother was the former Mary Louisa Macculloch, daughter of wealthy Morristown, New Jersey
engineer and businessman George P. Macculloch, who designed and built the Morris Canal
.
Lindley Miller was admitted to the bar in 1855, and established a successful law practice in New York City. Even as a young man, he was a noted orator and poet. After President Lincoln's proclamation of war in April 1861, he enlisted as a private in the 7th Regiment, New York State Militia
, known as the “Silk Stocking Regiment” for its elite membership. He married Anne Huntington Tracy of Manhattan
in May 1862. In August 1863, Anne Miller died after childbirth, at age 24, and their infant child died a week later. Heartbroken, Lindley Miller sought to become an officer with a colored regiment. He received a commission as captain in the First Arkansas Volunteer Infantry Regiment (African Descent) in November 1863.
Captain Miller first mentions the “Marching Song” in a letter from Vicksburg to his mother in Morristown, dated January 20, 1864. “I wrote a song for them to the tune of ‘John Brown’ the other day, which the whole Regiment sings. I sent a copy of it to Anthony” (Lindley's brother-in-law, Anthony Quinton Keasbey, U.S. Attorney
for New Jersey
from 1861 to 1868, married to Lindley's older sister, Edwina). Keasbey sent the song to the National Anti-Slavery Standard
, where it appeared in the February 27, 1864 issue. Recognized for his excellent service, Miller was promoted to Major and assigned to a Missouri
regiment, but never took up his new commission. On sick leave at his home, Miller died on June 30, 1864, at age 30, from a fever he had acquired during his service with the First Arkansas.
The “Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment” is known today through the song sheet issued by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments in Philadelphia. The “Song of the First of Arkansas,” written in dialect, was one of several broadsides issued by the Committee for recruitment purposes. The broadside had this brief introduction: “The following song was written by Captain Lindley Miller, of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment. Captain Miller says the ‘boys’ sing the song on dress parade with an effect which can hardly be described, and he adds that ‘while it is not very conservative, it will do to fight with.’ Captain Miller is a son of the late ex-Senator Miller, of New Jersey.” The song was also included in a collection of Union Army songs published in New York in 1864.
Irwin Silber
, editor of Sing Out!
from 1951 to 1967, introduced the song to a mid-20th-century audience in his Songs of the Civil War, published in 1960 in conjunction with the Civil War Centennial observance from 1961 to 1965. Silber thought it likely that the song represented a collaboration between Miller and his troops. Silber edited the song to standard English and titled it “Marching Song of the First Arkansas (Negro) Regiment.”
" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic
":
The most powerful challenge to the mores of the antebellum South is presented in the fourth stanza, where the black soldiers demand social equality, and more: “They will have to bow their foreheads to their colored kith and kin.” White Southerners will have to acknowledge their actual blood relations among the former slaves. A heavy debt is owed: “They will have to pay us wages, the wages of their sin” (as Romans
notes, the “wages of sin is death”). The black soldiers demand reparations, or threaten retaliation: “They will have to give us house-room, or the roof shall tumble in!”
In stanzas five and six, slavery has been abolished forever by the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln is described as “Father Abraham
,” a title that associates the President with the Old Testament
patriarch, emphasizing the religious sanction to the abolition of slavery. The song is a powerful summary of the hopes and dreams of the black soldiers. Years later, a Civil War veteran told Norman B. Wood “he once heard a black regiment sing it just before a battle and they made the welkin [heavens] ring, and inspired all who heard it.”
and Bill MacAdoo on the album Songs of the Civil War, released by Folkways Records
in 1960. Tennessee Ernie Ford
recorded the second on the album Tennessee Ernie Ford Sings Civil War Songs of the North, released by Capitol Records
in 1961. The Seeger-MacAdoo folk song version includes three verses, and Ford's gospel quartet
version includes four. Both recordings skipped the controversial fourth stanza. Seeger and MacAdoo's version is now a Smithsonian Folkways recording, and Ford's version is available as Bear Family Records
BCD 16635 AS. Keith and Rusty McNeil also recorded a three-stanza version of the “Marching Song” in their three-CD set of Civil War Songs. The song is in their self-published Civil War Songbook. Sparky and Rhonda Rucker included four verses from the “Marching Song” in a medley titled “Glory Hallelujah Suite” on The Blue and the Grey in Black and White, released by Flying Fish Records
in 1993. The bluegrass album Songs of the Civil War Era, self-published in November 2005 by ShoreGrass, contains a recording of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in which the first and second stanzas of the Marching Song are included.
Sweet Honey in the Rock
recorded Truth's song in 1993 on their 20th anniversary album, Still on the Journey. Bernice Johnson Reagon
, Sweet Honey's founder, renamed the song “Sojourner's Battle Hymn.” Truth's biographers Erlene Stetson and Linda David describe the song as “rousing, brashly defiant, irreverent and joyous,” and characterized Sweet Honey's version as “stirringly performed.” In 2006 the Sojourner Truth Institute and Heritage Battle Creek produced a CD, Am I Not a Man and a Brother? Songs of Freedom North and South, with talented local singers and musicians from Battle Creek, Michigan
, including a rendition of “The Valiant Soldiers” by Carolyn Ballard.
In the opera Appomattox
by Philip Glass
, the chorus sings a variation of the tune in Act One.
In the post-Civil War editions of Truth's Narrative, “The Valiant Soldiers” is introduced by this sentence by Francis Titus: “The following song, written for the first Michigan Regiment of colored soldiers, was composed by Sojourner Truth during the war, and was sung by her in Detroit and Washington.”
As she was unable to read or write, Truth dictated her original autobiography to her friend Olive Gilbert. The Narrative of Sojourner Truth was published in Boston in 1850 by William Lloyd Garrison
's printer on credit, and was sold by Truth at her public lectures. She had become a powerful and popular speaker on such reform topics as abolitionism
, women's suffrage
and temperance
, often including songs in her presentations.
In 1860 Truth moved from Northampton, Massachusetts
to Battle Creek, Michigan. Truth continued to travel and lecture during the Civil War, her fame as a speaker promoted by Harriet Beecher Stowe
's article in the April 1863 Atlantic Monthly, romanticizing Truth as the “Libyan Sibyl.” To support herself, Truth sold her carte de visite
at lectures in addition to sheets of her favorite songs and copies of her Narrative.
Sometime around Thanksgiving
1863, Truth collected food in Battle Creek and delivered it to the First Michigan Colored Infantry
, which was being organized that fall at Camp Ward in Detroit
. Truth biographers Carleton Mabee and Nell Irvin Painter report she sang “The Valiant Soldiers” either on this occasion or during another visit to the soldiers in February 1864, although they have not cited any contemporary sources that verify this. Neither the story about Truth's visit in the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune of November 24, 1863 nor Truth's letters of that period make any mention of her singing “The Valiant Soldiers.” The biographers seem to be extrapolating from Frances Titus's later statement.
Truth is first linked to the song in 1878, fourteen years after Miller's version was published in the National Anti-Slavery Standard. Truth's Michigan friend Frances Titus edited an expanded edition of Truth's Narrative by adding a section of letters and articles Truth had collected in the scrapbooks she called her “Book of Life.” The first edition, published in Boston in 1875, did not contain “The Valiant Soldiers.” Later editions printed in Battle Creek in 1878, 1881, and 1884 have the song inserted on a blank page between the original “Narrative” and the “Book of Life” sections. Titus's note that the song was composed for the First Michigan Regiment appears to be one more of the minor inaccuracies she introduced into her editions of the Narrative. There is no question that Truth sang the song; Painter cites a newspaper account of Truth singing a variation of "The Valiant Soldiers" in 1879 to the black settlers in Kansas
known as Exodusters
. But there is no evidence Truth composed the lyrics before Lindley Miller's "Marching Song" was published and widely distributed.
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
-era song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
s inspired by the lyrical structure of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a hymn by American writer Julia Ward Howe using the music from the song "John Brown's Body". Howe's more famous lyrics were written in November 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. It became popular during the American Civil War...
" and the tune of "John Brown's Body
John Brown's Body
"John Brown's Body" is an American marching song about the abolitionist John Brown. The song was popular in the Union during the American Civil War. The tune arose out of the folk hymn tradition of the American camp meeting movement of the 19th century...
" that is still performed and recorded today. The "Marching Song" has been described as "a powerful early statement of black pride, militancy, and desire for full equality, revealing the aspirations of black soldiers for Reconstruction as well as anticipating the spirit of the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
of the 1960s." The song's lyrics are attributed to the regiment's white officer, Captain Lindley Miller. An almost identical song, “The Valiant Soldiers,” is attributed to Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth was the self-given name, from 1843 onward, of Isabella Baumfree, an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, she...
in post-Civil War editions of her Narrative. Recent scholarship supports Miller as the original author, or at least compiler, of the “Marching Song.”
History
Although CongressUnited States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
had passed a confiscation act and a militia act in July 1862, permitting freed slaves to serve in the Union Army
Union Army
The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
, President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
was reluctant to enlist blacks as soldiers. After Union Army setbacks in battles during 1862, Lincoln announced in September that effective January 1, 1863, all slaves in Confederate
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
territory would be free. Beginning in 1863, recruitment of black soldiers proceeded with Lincoln's approval.
The First Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
Volunteer Infantry Regiment (African Descent) began recruiting among former slaves in Helena, Arkansas
Helena, Arkansas
Helena is the eastern portion of Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, a city in Phillips County, Arkansas. As of the 2000 census, this portion of the city population was 6,323. Helena was the county seat of Phillips County until January 1, 2006, when it merged its government and city limits with...
following Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
of January 1863, and was officially established on May 1. In June the regiment saw action at Mound Plantation, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, and at Goodrich's Landing, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, where the unit remained through January 1864. The unit then moved to Haines Bluff near Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg is a city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the only city in Warren County. It is located northwest of New Orleans on the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and due west of Jackson, the state capital. In 1900, 14,834 people lived in Vicksburg; in 1910, 20,814; in 1920,...
until May 1864. The Union Army standardized the varied names of colored regiments as “United States Colored Troops
United States Colored Troops
The United States Colored Troops were regiments of the United States Army during the American Civil War that were composed of African American soldiers. First recruited in 1863, by the end of the Civil War, the men of the 175 regiments of the USCT constituted approximately one-tenth of the Union...
” (U.S.C.T.), and the First Arkansas became the “46th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry” on May 11, 1864.
Lindley Miller was the son of Jacob W. Miller
Jacob W. Miller
Jacob Welsh Miller was a United States Senator from New Jersey.-Biography:Born in German Valley, New Jersey , he attended the public schools, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1823, and practiced in Morristown...
, who served as a U.S. Senator of the Whig Party
Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...
from New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
between 1841 and 1853. His mother was the former Mary Louisa Macculloch, daughter of wealthy Morristown, New Jersey
Morristown, New Jersey
Morristown is a town in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the town population was 18,411. It is the county seat of Morris County. Morristown became characterized as "the military capital of the American Revolution" because of its strategic role in the...
engineer and businessman George P. Macculloch, who designed and built the Morris Canal
Morris Canal
The Morris Canal was an anthracite-carrying canal that incorporated a series of water-driven inclined planes in its course across northern New Jersey in the United States. It was in use for about a century — from the late 1820s to the 1920s....
.
Lindley Miller was admitted to the bar in 1855, and established a successful law practice in New York City. Even as a young man, he was a noted orator and poet. After President Lincoln's proclamation of war in April 1861, he enlisted as a private in the 7th Regiment, New York State Militia
Seventh Regiment Armory
The Seventh Regiment Armory, located at 643 Park Avenue also known as in New York, New York, United States, is an historic brick building that fills an entire city block on New York's Upper East Side.- History :...
, known as the “Silk Stocking Regiment” for its elite membership. He married Anne Huntington Tracy of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in May 1862. In August 1863, Anne Miller died after childbirth, at age 24, and their infant child died a week later. Heartbroken, Lindley Miller sought to become an officer with a colored regiment. He received a commission as captain in the First Arkansas Volunteer Infantry Regiment (African Descent) in November 1863.
Captain Miller first mentions the “Marching Song” in a letter from Vicksburg to his mother in Morristown, dated January 20, 1864. “I wrote a song for them to the tune of ‘John Brown’ the other day, which the whole Regiment sings. I sent a copy of it to Anthony” (Lindley's brother-in-law, Anthony Quinton Keasbey, U.S. Attorney
United States Attorney
United States Attorneys represent the United States federal government in United States district court and United States court of appeals. There are 93 U.S. Attorneys stationed throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands...
for New Jersey
United States District Court for the District of New Jersey
The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey is the federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of New Jersey....
from 1861 to 1868, married to Lindley's older sister, Edwina). Keasbey sent the song to the National Anti-Slavery Standard
National Anti-Slavery Standard
The National Anti-Slavery Standard was the official weekly newspaper of the American Anti-Slavery Society, established in 1840 under the editorship of Lydia Maria Child and David Lee Child. The paper published continuously until the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States...
, where it appeared in the February 27, 1864 issue. Recognized for his excellent service, Miller was promoted to Major and assigned to a Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
regiment, but never took up his new commission. On sick leave at his home, Miller died on June 30, 1864, at age 30, from a fever he had acquired during his service with the First Arkansas.
The “Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment” is known today through the song sheet issued by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments in Philadelphia. The “Song of the First of Arkansas,” written in dialect, was one of several broadsides issued by the Committee for recruitment purposes. The broadside had this brief introduction: “The following song was written by Captain Lindley Miller, of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment. Captain Miller says the ‘boys’ sing the song on dress parade with an effect which can hardly be described, and he adds that ‘while it is not very conservative, it will do to fight with.’ Captain Miller is a son of the late ex-Senator Miller, of New Jersey.” The song was also included in a collection of Union Army songs published in New York in 1864.
Irwin Silber
Irwin Silber
Irwin Silber was an American journalist, editor, publisher, and political activist.-Early years:Irwin Silber was born October 17, 1925 in New York City to ethnic Jewish parents....
, editor of Sing Out!
Sing Out!
Sing Out! is a quarterly journal of folk music and folk songs that has been published since May 1950.-Background:Sing Out! is the primary publication of the tax exempt, not-for-profit, educational corporation of the same name...
from 1951 to 1967, introduced the song to a mid-20th-century audience in his Songs of the Civil War, published in 1960 in conjunction with the Civil War Centennial observance from 1961 to 1965. Silber thought it likely that the song represented a collaboration between Miller and his troops. Silber edited the song to standard English and titled it “Marching Song of the First Arkansas (Negro) Regiment.”
Score
“Marching Song” follows the tune of "John Brown's BodyJohn Brown's Body
"John Brown's Body" is an American marching song about the abolitionist John Brown. The song was popular in the Union during the American Civil War. The tune arose out of the folk hymn tradition of the American camp meeting movement of the 19th century...
" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a hymn by American writer Julia Ward Howe using the music from the song "John Brown's Body". Howe's more famous lyrics were written in November 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. It became popular during the American Civil War...
":
Lyrics
- 1. Oh, we're the bully soldiers of the “First of Arkansas,”
- We are fighting for the Union, we are fighting for the law,
- We can hit a Rebel further than a white man ever saw,
- As we go marching on.
-
- Chorus:
- Glory, glory hallelujah.
- Glory, glory hallelujah.
- Glory, glory hallelujah.
- As we go marching on.
- 2. See, there above the center, where the flag is waving bright,
- We are going out of slavery; we're bound for freedom's light;
- We mean to show Jeff DavisJefferson DavisJefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...
how the Africans can fight, - As we go marching on! (Chorus)
- 3. We have done with hoeing cotton, we have done with hoeing corn,
- We are colored Yankee soldiers, now, as sure as you are born;
- When the masters hear us yelling, they'll think it's Gabriel's horn,
- As we go marching on. (Chorus)
- 4. They will have to pay us wages, the wages of their sin,
- They will have to bow their foreheads to their colored kith and kin,
- They will have to give us house-room, or the roof shall tumble in!
- As we go marching on. (Chorus)
- 5. We heard the Proclamation, master hush it as he will,
- The bird he sing it to us, hoppin' on the cotton hill,
- And the possum up the gum tree, he couldn't keep it still,
- As he went climbing on. (Chorus)
- 6. They said, “Now colored brethren, you shall be forever free,
- From the first of January, Eighteen hundred sixty-three.”
- We heard it in the river going rushing to the sea,
- As it went sounding on. (Chorus)
- 7. Father Abraham has spoken and the message has been sent,
- The prison doors he opened, and out the pris'ners went,
- To join the sable army of “African descent,”
- As we go marching on. (Chorus)
- 8. Then fall in, colored brethren, you'd better do it soon,
- Don't you hear the drum a-beating the Yankee DoodleYankee Doodle"Yankee Doodle" is a well-known Anglo-American song, the origin of which dates back to the Seven Years' War. It is often sung patriotically in the United States today and is the state anthem of Connecticut...
tune? - We are with you now this morning, we'll be far away at noon,
- As we go marching on. (Chorus)
Interpretation
The black soldiers are in exuberant spirits, bragging in the first three stanzas that they will show the rebels they are formidable fighters. They are fighting for the law, which offers equal treatment, as well as the Union. As soldiers, the third stanza says, they are striking out for a new life, leaving behind “hoeing cotton” and “hoeing corn.”The most powerful challenge to the mores of the antebellum South is presented in the fourth stanza, where the black soldiers demand social equality, and more: “They will have to bow their foreheads to their colored kith and kin.” White Southerners will have to acknowledge their actual blood relations among the former slaves. A heavy debt is owed: “They will have to pay us wages, the wages of their sin” (as Romans
Epistle to the Romans
The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, often shortened to Romans, is the sixth book in the New Testament. Biblical scholars agree that it was composed by the Apostle Paul to explain that Salvation is offered through the Gospel of Jesus Christ...
notes, the “wages of sin is death”). The black soldiers demand reparations, or threaten retaliation: “They will have to give us house-room, or the roof shall tumble in!”
In stanzas five and six, slavery has been abolished forever by the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln is described as “Father Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
,” a title that associates the President with the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
patriarch, emphasizing the religious sanction to the abolition of slavery. The song is a powerful summary of the hopes and dreams of the black soldiers. Years later, a Civil War veteran told Norman B. Wood “he once heard a black regiment sing it just before a battle and they made the welkin [heavens] ring, and inspired all who heard it.”
Recordings
Soon after Silber's book appeared, two recordings were issued based on his version, one by Pete SeegerPete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
and Bill MacAdoo on the album Songs of the Civil War, released by Folkways Records
Folkways Records
Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987, and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.-History:...
in 1960. Tennessee Ernie Ford
Tennessee Ernie Ford
Ernest Jennings Ford , better known as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was an American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres...
recorded the second on the album Tennessee Ernie Ford Sings Civil War Songs of the North, released by Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
in 1961. The Seeger-MacAdoo folk song version includes three verses, and Ford's gospel quartet
Gospel quartet
The term Gospel quartet refers to several different traditions of harmony singing. Its origins are varied, including 4-part hymn singing, shapenote singing, barbershop quartets, jubilee songs, spirituals, and other Gospel songs....
version includes four. Both recordings skipped the controversial fourth stanza. Seeger and MacAdoo's version is now a Smithsonian Folkways recording, and Ford's version is available as Bear Family Records
Bear Family Records
Bear Family Records is a Germany-based independent record label that specializes in reissues of archival material ranging from country music to 1950s rock and roll to old German movie soundtracks.-History:...
BCD 16635 AS. Keith and Rusty McNeil also recorded a three-stanza version of the “Marching Song” in their three-CD set of Civil War Songs. The song is in their self-published Civil War Songbook. Sparky and Rhonda Rucker included four verses from the “Marching Song” in a medley titled “Glory Hallelujah Suite” on The Blue and the Grey in Black and White, released by Flying Fish Records
Flying Fish Records
Flying Fish Records was a Chicago-based eclectic blues and country record label. It was founded in 1974 by Bruce Kaplan, former president of the University of Chicago's Folklore Society....
in 1993. The bluegrass album Songs of the Civil War Era, self-published in November 2005 by ShoreGrass, contains a recording of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in which the first and second stanzas of the Marching Song are included.
Sweet Honey in the Rock
Sweet Honey in the Rock
Sweet Honey in the Rock is an all-woman, African-American a cappella ensemble. They are an American Grammy Award-winning troupe who express their history as women of color through song, while entertaining their audience. They have together worked from four women to the difficult five-part harmony...
recorded Truth's song in 1993 on their 20th anniversary album, Still on the Journey. Bernice Johnson Reagon
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Bernice Johnson Reagon is a singer, composer, scholar, and social activist, who founded the a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1973.-Early life and education:...
, Sweet Honey's founder, renamed the song “Sojourner's Battle Hymn.” Truth's biographers Erlene Stetson and Linda David describe the song as “rousing, brashly defiant, irreverent and joyous,” and characterized Sweet Honey's version as “stirringly performed.” In 2006 the Sojourner Truth Institute and Heritage Battle Creek produced a CD, Am I Not a Man and a Brother? Songs of Freedom North and South, with talented local singers and musicians from Battle Creek, Michigan
Battle Creek, Michigan
Battle Creek is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, in northwest Calhoun County, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek Rivers. It is the principal city of the Battle Creek, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area , which encompasses all of Calhoun county...
, including a rendition of “The Valiant Soldiers” by Carolyn Ballard.
In the opera Appomattox
Appomattox (opera)
Appomattox is an opera in English based on the American Civil War, composed by Philip Glass, with a libretto by the playwright Christopher Hampton. The work had its world premiere at the San Francisco Opera on October 5, 2007, with a cast that included Dwayne Croft as Robert E. Lee, Andrew Shore as...
by Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, the chorus sings a variation of the tune in Act One.
Sojourner Truth's version
Sojourner Truth's version of the song, “The Valiant Soldiers,” which appears in the 1878, 1881, and 1884 editions of her Narrative, is almost identical to Silber's edition of the “Marching Song,” containing stanzas one through five plus stanza seven. Only the first line of the first stanza is different: “We are the valiant soldiers who've ‘listed for the war.” Stanzas six and eight are found only in the “Marching Song.”As she was unable to read or write, Truth dictated her original autobiography to her friend Olive Gilbert. The Narrative of Sojourner Truth was published in Boston in 1850 by William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...
's printer on credit, and was sold by Truth at her public lectures. She had become a powerful and popular speaker on such reform topics as abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
, women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
and temperance
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
, often including songs in her presentations.
In 1860 Truth moved from Northampton, Massachusetts
Northampton, Massachusetts
The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of Northampton's central neighborhoods, was 28,549...
to Battle Creek, Michigan. Truth continued to travel and lecture during the Civil War, her fame as a speaker promoted by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
's article in the April 1863 Atlantic Monthly, romanticizing Truth as the “Libyan Sibyl.” To support herself, Truth sold her carte de visite
Carte de visite
The carte de visite was a type of small photograph which was patented in Paris, France by photographer André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri in 1854, although first used by Louis Dodero...
at lectures in addition to sheets of her favorite songs and copies of her Narrative.
Sometime around Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...
1863, Truth collected food in Battle Creek and delivered it to the First Michigan Colored Infantry
102nd Regiment United States Colored Troops
The 102nd Regiment United States Colored Troops was an African American infantry unit of the Union Army during the American Civil War. The unit was organized as the 1st Michigan Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment before being redesignated as the 102nd Regiment USCT.-History:The 1st Michigan...
, which was being organized that fall at Camp Ward in Detroit
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
. Truth biographers Carleton Mabee and Nell Irvin Painter report she sang “The Valiant Soldiers” either on this occasion or during another visit to the soldiers in February 1864, although they have not cited any contemporary sources that verify this. Neither the story about Truth's visit in the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune of November 24, 1863 nor Truth's letters of that period make any mention of her singing “The Valiant Soldiers.” The biographers seem to be extrapolating from Frances Titus's later statement.
Truth is first linked to the song in 1878, fourteen years after Miller's version was published in the National Anti-Slavery Standard. Truth's Michigan friend Frances Titus edited an expanded edition of Truth's Narrative by adding a section of letters and articles Truth had collected in the scrapbooks she called her “Book of Life.” The first edition, published in Boston in 1875, did not contain “The Valiant Soldiers.” Later editions printed in Battle Creek in 1878, 1881, and 1884 have the song inserted on a blank page between the original “Narrative” and the “Book of Life” sections. Titus's note that the song was composed for the First Michigan Regiment appears to be one more of the minor inaccuracies she introduced into her editions of the Narrative. There is no question that Truth sang the song; Painter cites a newspaper account of Truth singing a variation of "The Valiant Soldiers" in 1879 to the black settlers in Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
known as Exodusters
Exodusters
Exodusters was a name given to African Americans who fled the Southern United States for Kansas in 1879 and 1880. After the end of Reconstruction, racial oppression and rumors of the reinstitution of slavery led many freedmen to seek a new place to live....
. But there is no evidence Truth composed the lyrics before Lindley Miller's "Marching Song" was published and widely distributed.