# Mark Twain's "Other" Battle Hymn of the Republic



## Puritanhead

Considering my great-great-great-great grandfather got his leg blown off by deem-Yankees, and because my southern forefathers were regarded as a "grapes of wrath to be trampled under foot" this parody of the Unitarian, Julia Ward Howe's battle hymn is rather humorous.


Mark Twain's parody of the _Battle Hymn of the Republic_
written approximately 1900

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Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword; 
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored; He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored; His lust is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded him an altar in the Eastern dews and damps; I have read his doomful mission by the dim and flaring lamps -- His night is marching on.

I have read his bandit gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: 
"As ye deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal; Let the faithless son of Freedom crush the patriot with his heel; Lo, Greed is marching on!"

We have legalized the strumpet and are guarding her retreat;* Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgment seat; O, be swift, ye clods, to answer him! be jubilant my feet! Our god is marching on!

In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch, With a longing in his bosom -- and for others' goods an itch. 

As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich -- Our god is marching on.

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BTW Don't ask me to sing the _Battle Hymn of the Republic_ at church... I'll just sit in my pew and twiddle my thumbs...


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## LawrenceU

Right there with you, Ryan. I got in serious trouble in high school for refusing to sing the song in our chorus. After I explained why -- well, they don't sing it any longer and that has been over 20 years ago.

Great lyrics.


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## Average Joey

I am ignorant.What is wrong with Battle Hymn of the Republic?Please lecture me.


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## LawrenceU

It is a Union war song. It states within its lines that the Union was acting as the righteous agent of God. In God's providence the Union was victorious. It was not righteous in any fashion in what it did to our nation; nor in what it did to the North. 

This line alone should suffice:

" I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish`d 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."

But that is not all:

'He has builded him an altar. . .' God requiring the sacrifice of Confederate soldiers, wives, children, and slaves to appease him. Blasphemous.

[Edited on 7-17-2005 by LawrenceU]


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## VirginiaHuguenot

I think Mark Twain's version is much more accurate.


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## RamistThomist

A thousand times amen, Ryan! That so called "hymn" is a unitarian death song praising the slaughter of my people!

No, we ain't forgot


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## RamistThomist

Ryan,
I posted that on a humanistic message board (don't worry, I left PB out of it). I am waiting on the responses!


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## Puritanhead

Well, I just got back from the Abbeville Institute's seminar (held this year in Louisiana) where I heard Thomas DiLorenzo lecture on the Real Lincoln, Emory professor Donald Livingston on Lincoln on Race and Slavery, the illustrious Clyde Wilson on the Lincoln Fable, Joseph Stromberg on Lincoln and the Marxists, the European perspective from Univ. of Milan professor and Lega Nord activist Marco Bassani, and others on the war crimes and reconstruction horrors. Needless to say, I'm in my not liking belligerent yankees right now mood! 

I got lots of autographed books including the: _The Real Lincoln_ by Thomas DiLorenzo, _From Union to Empire: Essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition_ by Clyde N. Wilson, and _Constitutional History of Secession_ by John Remington Graham. And several autographed Real Lincoln books for friends as well.

http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org

Southern pride!! Deo Vindice!






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Asked Of Abraham Lincoln... 
"Why not let the South go in peace?" 

Response Of Abraham Lincoln... 
"I can't let them go. Who would pay for the government?" 

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"All we ask is to be left alone." 
--- President Jefferson Davis, CSA 

"There is a class of people (in the South), men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order..." 
--General William T. Sherman to General Thomas Ewing (Order #11) 

"Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully too, and another year they may beg in vain for their lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences. Many many people, with less pertinacity than the South, have been wiped out of national existence. To those who submit to the rightful law and authority, all gentleness and forbearance; but to the petulant and persistent secessionist, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better." 
--General William T. Sherman to General Thomas Ewing (Order #11) 

"I would have never surrendered the army if I had known how the South would have been treated." 
--General Robert E. Lee, CSA 

"Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War; will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision." 

--General Pat Cleburne, CSA 

"If I ever disown, repudiate, or apologize for the Cause for which Lee fought and Jackson died, let the lightnings of Heaven rend me, and the scorn of all good men and true women be my portion. Sun, Moon, Stars, all fall on me when I cease to love the Confederacy. 'Tis the cause, not the fate of the Cause, that is glorious!" 

--Maj. R.E. Wilson, CSA 

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The Real Truth about Missouri and Bloody Kansas... Governor Fremont and the Jayhawkers declared total war on southern partisans... but the lop-sided History Channel and establishment historians won't talk about the tit-for-tat nature of the conflict and who initiated it... The Union partisans escalated it to the horrors of total warfare. Quantrill, the so called southern partisan, for example, was a school teacher from Ohio. So, it's not so black and white.

"But Quantrill and his men were no more bandits than the men on the other side. I've been to reunions of Quantrill's men two or three times. All they were trying to do was protect the property on the Missouri side of the line..." 
--President Harry S. Truman 

"...They tried to make my uncle Harrison into an informer, but he wouldn't do it. He was only a boy... They tried to hang him, time and again they tried it, 'stretching his neck', they called it, but he didn't say anything. I think he'd have died before he'd said anything. He's the one I'm named after, and I'm happy to say that there were people...around at the time who said I took after him." 
--- President Harry S. Truman, speaking about what the Kansas "Red Legs" did to his uncle, at age thirteen during the War Between The States. 

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"Rather than concede to the State of Missouri for one single instant the right to dictate to my Government in any manner, however unimportant..." 

Lyon rose from his chair, spurs clinking, and pointed at Governor Jackson?s breast... 

"...I will see you..." - he touched the bosom of General Price 

"...and you..." - he prodded solemn Blair 

"...and you..." - he poked Secretary Snead 

"...and every man woman and child in the State of Missouri dead and buried!" 

--Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon, on behalf of Lincoln, formally declaring Total War on the entire State of Missouri, including both Missouri State Guard and civilians. 

Sic Semper Tyrannis

[Edited on 7-18-2005 by Puritanhead]


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## Puritanhead

> _Originally posted by Average Joey_
> I am ignorant. What is wrong with Battle Hymn of the Republic? Please lecture me.



The _Battle Hymn of the Republic_ is a unitarian's ode to wanton violence, as if God blesses the Yanks in their brutality, rape, pillage and wholesale murder... the gratituitous rapes and disreputable dishonoring of southern women and the savage cruelty of water torture and house-to-house executions is inexcusable...



> 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.
> 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;
> "œAs 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 live to make men free;
> [originally "¦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.
> 
> He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
> He is wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave;
> So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of wrong His slave,
> Our God is marching on.
> Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
> Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on.



[Edited on 7-18-2005 by Puritanhead]


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## RamistThomist

> _Originally posted by joshua_
> Keep in mind, Ryan, that disliking Yankees is of little relevance. Many Yanks, I'm sure, would've gladly bypassed Lincoln's unconstitutional war and have seen the South off in her secession. However, Lincoln the Great Dictator (as opposed to Emancipator) intimidated many people in the North into submission. This is one reason why I wouldn't call it the "War Between the States" The War for Southern Independence is fitting. With Lincoln's heinous suspension of Habeus Corpus came a power to throw in jail anyone he pleased without accountability. Governing bodies, newspaper editors, men of values, etc. He went so far as to not only throw those who were actively against his war, but to also put away those who weren't openly promoting it! How's that for a "Democractic Republic"?
> 
> [Edited on 7-18-2005 by joshua]



To pursue a tangent of that, many Yanks today are seeing through the government-schools' rewriting of American history. Among homeschoolers of the North, the Cause of the South is becoming the cause of us all, to quote A H Stephens.


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## PuritanCovenanter

I was duped for many years. I finally started seeing the light when I read a book titled Preachers with Power by BOT. It started opening my eyes. Plus I love Virginia and Alabama. I was regenerate in Virginia.

Do you mean the civil war wasn't started over slavery? It was the war of NORTHERN AGRESSION.


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## Puritanhead

> _Originally posted by joshua_
> Keep in mind, Ryan, that disliking Yankees is of little relevance. Many Yanks, I'm sure, would've gladly bypassed Lincoln's unconstitutional war and have seen the South off in her secession. However, Lincoln the Great Dictator (as opposed to Emancipator) intimidated many people in the North into submission. This is one reason why I wouldn't call it the "War Between the States" The War for Southern Independence is fitting. With Lincoln's heinous suspension of Habeus Corpus came a power to throw in jail anyone he pleased without accountability. Governing bodies, newspaper editors, men of values, etc. He went so far as to not only throw those who were actively against his war, but to also put away those who weren't openly promoting it! How's that for a "Democractic Republic"?



You're preaching to the choir Josh... I've got a handful of _Southern Partisan_ magazines on the _Battle of New York_ that I am going to give to my Copperhead friends from _up north_ when I run into them. An older gentlemen from New York that made my acquitance at the Abbeville Institute seminar was recounting Union atrocities and started cursing about the moral repugnance of it all... and d*mning yankees on my behalf and on my ancestors behalf... I think to myself-- "he said it, I didn't..."
:bigsmile:

[Edited on 7-18-2005 by Puritanhead]


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## turmeric

I don't know why people don't mention providence when discussing Hitler,et al. They should. As for the War of Many Names that we had here, I think it was a judgment of God on everyone, probably because we were taking some definite wrong turns away from Him, Unitarianism, Negro slavery, commercialism, etc. We all, North & South, deserved a trip to the woodshed, and got it. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have learned much from it.

[Edited on 7-18-2005 by turmeric]


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## RamistThomist

Context, gentleman.

Josh, I don't think Ryan knows you well enough to know of your firm southron sympathies. 

Ryan,
Powerful words, there. You talkin truth!


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## PuritanCovenanter

I agree Josh. Besides, who said it won't happen again.

Succession

Especially if you look at the way the Judicial System is becoming tyrannical.


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## RamistThomist

> _Originally posted by puritancovenanter_
> I agree Josh. Besides, who said it won't happen again.
> 
> Succession
> 
> Especially if you look at the way the Judicial System is becoming tyrannical.



If at first you don't seceede, try again, by RC Sproul Jr


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## kevin.carroll

I realize this may come as a surprise...but the war is over... :bigsmile:


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## PuritanCovenanter

> _Originally posted by Draught Horse_
> 
> 
> 
> _Originally posted by puritancovenanter_
> I agree Josh. Besides, who said it won't happen again.
> 
> Succession
> 
> Especially if you look at the way the Judicial System is becoming tyrannical.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If at first you don't seceede, try again, by RC Sproul Jr
Click to expand...


oops... I misspelled secede


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## RamistThomist

> _Originally posted by kevin.carroll_
> I realize this may come as a surprise...but the war is over... :bigsmile:



But the effects of the war are continuing:

eminent domain
suspension of habeus corpus
seizing private property
judicial tyranny
presidential tyranny
congressional spinlessness
the income tax
american citizens no longer being treated as citizens but as federal entities whose worth is determined by the state.

No, teh war is not over. Not until the Cause of the South becomes the Cause of us all will we know true liberty.


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## PuritanCovenanter

> _Originally posted by kevin.carroll_
> I realize this may come as a surprise...but the war is over... :bigsmile:



The wars of men are only battles. The War is not over. 

*For Christ's Crown and Covenant!*

The Great Secession is still at hand. When the elect son's of men are taken out out this world and the final battle is done it will be over. Till then we must battle or lose ground. With Messiah the Prince as our Captain we can not lose. 

[Edited on 7-18-2005 by puritancovenanter]


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## VirginiaHuguenot

> _Originally posted by Draught Horse_
> 
> 
> 
> _Originally posted by kevin.carroll_
> I realize this may come as a surprise...but the war is over... :bigsmile:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But the effects of the war are continuing:
> 
> eminent domain
> suspension of habeus corpus
> seizing private property
> judicial tyranny
> presidential tyranny
> congressional spinlessness
> the income tax
> american citizens no longer being treated as citizens but as federal entities whose worth is determined by the state.
> 
> No, the war is not over. Not until the Cause of the South becomes the Cause of us all will we know true liberty.
Click to expand...


 "The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form." -- Jefferson Davis


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## RamistThomist

Any question that is settled by violence or in disregard of the law is to remain unsettled.

--Jeff Davis

"Make sure the issues are dead before you bury them."

---R L Dabney


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## Puritanhead

*The Quotes Shall Set You Free*

"...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government , and to provide new Guards for their future security...." 
--The Declaration of Independence

"We could have pursued no other course without dishonor. And sad as the results have been, if it had all to be done over again, we should be compelled to act in precisely the same manner." --General Robert E. Lee, C.S.A. [cited in The Memorial Volume of Jefferson Davis by J. William Jones, 1889, Sprinkle Publications, p. 309]

"The Civil War wasn't just a victory of North over South; it was a victory for centralized government over the states and federalism. It destroyed the ability of the states to protect themselves against the destruction of their reserved powers. Must we all be happy about this? [Abraham] Lincoln himself -- the real Lincoln, that is -- would have deprecated the unintended results of the war. Though he sometimes resorted to dictatorial methods, he never meant to create a totalitarian state. It's tragic that slavery was intertwined with a good cause, and scandalous that those who defend that cause today should be smeared as partisans of slavery. But the verdict of history must not be left to the simple-minded and the demagogic." 
--Joseph Sobran 

"Like most war leaders, he [Lincoln] grossly distorted and exaggerated the motives of his enemy. He constantly insisted that the South wanted to "œdestroy" the Union, when it merely wanted to withdraw from it. He called honorable men like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee "œtraitors," though they never betrayed anyone in their lives. He accused the South of "œaggression," when it was the South that was being invaded, and truly destroyed, by the Union armies. Having assured the country that he had neither the power nor the inclination to disturb slavery, Lincoln made the destruction of slavery his lofty war aim in the middle of the war." ---Joseph Sobran 

"A nation preserved with liberty trampled underfoot is much worse than a nation in fragments but with the spirit of liberty still alive. Southerners persistently claim that their rebellion is for the purpose of preserving this form of government." --Private John H. Haley, 17th Maine Regiment, USA

"If the right of secession be denied...and the denial enforced by the sword of coercion; the nature of the polity is changed, and freedom is at its end. It is no longer a government by consent, but a government of force. Conquest is substituted compact, and the dream of liberty is over." --Albert Taylor Bledsoe, from Is Davis a Traitor?

"If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission, and offer my sword to the other side." --Ulysses S. Grant

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."--Abraham Lincoln. March 4, 1861 Inaugural address 

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union." --Abraham Lincoln in an 1862 letter to Horace Greeley on his justification for the Northern War of Aggression against the constitutional secession of the South. In September 1862, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation (effective Jan. 1, 1863). 

"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination -- that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue . The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves." 
--H.L. Mencken


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## Puritanhead

> _Originally posted by Draught Horse_
> 
> 
> 
> _Originally posted by kevin.carroll_
> I realize this may come as a surprise...but the war is over... :bigsmile:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But the effects of the war are continuing:
> 
> eminent domain
> suspension of habeus corpus
> seizing private property
> judicial tyranny
> presidential tyranny
> congressional spinlessness
> the income tax
> american citizens no longer being treated as citizens but as federal entities whose worth is determined by the state.
> 
> No, the war is not over. Not until the Cause of the South becomes the Cause of us all will we know true liberty.
Click to expand...


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