Earlier this week, I published a tutorial for Battle Hymn of the Republic, and today’s post is a sequel of sorts. Here’s an excerpt from Monday’s post:
There is a grand tradition of folk songs being remixed and reinvented, and Battle Hymn of the Republic is a prime example of this. Julia Ward Howe wrote the song at the start of the Civil War after visiting with Union soldiers, but it is not an original song. The soldiers had composed their own marching song called John Brown’s Body, and Howe’s version is, essentially, a high-brow update to that song. In turn, Battle Hymn inspired subsequent adaptations, including Captain Lindley Miller’s The Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment and Sojourner Truth’s Valiant Soldiers.
The song I’m sharing in honor of Juneteenth is one of the updates to Howe’s Battle Hymn. The Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment was written by Lindley Miller, the captain of the regiment, in 1864. The song uses the same melody as Battle Hymn but comes from the perspective of the soldiers. And my goodness, it is powerful! As David Walls succinctly put it, “All in all, this song is one of the best outlines we have concerning the hopes and expectations of the black soldiers of that era.”
The Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment
Chorus:
Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah! As we go marching on!
Oh, we’re the bully soldiers who’ve enlisted for the war
We are fighting for the Union, we are fighting for the law
We can shoot a rebel farther than a white man ever saw
As we go marching on!
Look there above the center, where the flag is waving bright
We are going out of slavery, we are bound for freedom’s light
We mean to show Jeff Davis how the Africans can fight
As we go marching on!
We are done with hoeing cotton, we are done with hoeing corn
We are coloured Yankee soldiers just as sure as you are born
When the rebels hears us shouting, they will think it’s Gabriel’s horn
As we go marching on!
They will have to pay us wages, for the wages of their sin
They will have to bow their foreheads to their coloured kith and kin
They will have to give us house-room or the roof will tumble in
As we go marching on!
We hear the proclamation, Rebels, crush it as you will
The birds will sing it to us, hopping on the cotton hill
The possum up the gum tree couldn’t keep it still
As he went climbing on!
Abraham has spoken and the message has been sent
The prison doors have opened and out the prisoners went
To join the sable army of African descent
As we go marching on!
PS: Before sharing a song with you, I do my best to research its origin but I am not a musicologist— I just love folk music. If you have any great resources (print or digital) I should know about, notice a factual error that needs correcting, or have additional context to provide, please get in touch!
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