![]() ![]() The hymn’s call-and-response structure, the interracial makeup of camp meetings, Mead’s documented preaching to blacks, and eyewitness observers’ describing slaves singing the hymn in a ring shout all suggest the origins of “Say Brothers” were probably as much African as white American. In addition, the “Glory, glory Hallelujah” chorus, which soon replaced “We’ll shout and give him glory,” was especially popular in black spirituals-and we know that Mead preached to slaves. The black roots of the “Say Brothers” hymn are further supported by numerous eyewitnesses who described slaves singing “Say Brothers” in a ring shout, an African religious ritual in which people gathered in a circle and sang (or shouted), dancing in a counterclockwise direction and using a call-and-response structure. What’s especially fascinating about this first known publication of “Say Brothers” is that it includes call-and-response directions:Ĭall-and-response directions between minister and congregants typified the basic form and structure of African-American spirituals. Mead probably included the song in his hymnbook after hearing it sung in camp. As a result, there were frequent, usually modest, changes in the published lyrics. Like other folk hymns, it was easily memorized, and it circulated orally. It is a folk hymn, meaning that it adapted sacred words to a secular tune. “Grace Reviving in the Soul” soon became known as the “Say Brothers” or “O Brothers” hymn. The “Battle Hymn” tune was adapted from “Say, Brothers, Will You Meet Us / On Canaan’s Happy Shore,” a Southern camp-meeting spiritual first published in an 1807 Virginia hymnbook by Methodist circuit-rider Stith Mead. ![]() But in research for our book The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On, Ben Soskis and I discovered the “Battle Hymn” tune actually dates back to early–19th century Southern camp meetings, open-air services attended by whites and blacks, slaves and free individuals, where the liturgy consisted mainly of hymns. Steffe claimed, decades after the fact and without any evidence, that he had composed it in the mid-1850s for a visiting Baltimore fire company, dubbing the tune, “Say, Bummers, Will You Meet Us.” Even today you see some sheet music and arrangements that attribute Steffe as the tune’s creator. The tune is often attributed to William Steffe, a South Carolina native who settled in Philadelphia. The song’s origins have long been shrouded in obscurity. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is far more popular today than it was during the Civil War-beloved by Northerners and Southerners, conservatives and radicals, whites and blacks. The Song That Marches On: History of the Battle Hymn of the Republic Close ![]()
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