Tweet   Battle Hymn of the Republic by David Hart "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. Since that time it has become an extremely popular and well-known American patriotic song. The tune was written around 1856 by William Steffe. The first known lyrics were called "Canaan's Happy Shore" or "Brothers, Will You Meet Me?" and the song was sung as a campfire spiritual. The tune spread across the United States, gaining a reputation as the best song of its time.  Thomas Bishop, from Vermont, joined the Massachusetts Infantry before the outbreak of war and compiled a popular set of lyrics, circa 1860, titled "John Brown's Body", which became one of his unit's walking songs. According to writer Irwin Silber (who has written a book about Civil War folk songs), the original lyrics were about John Brown, the famed abolitionist.