What is battle hymn of the republic supposed to be about?

Answer 1

For me there is a huge difference between Julia Ward How's original lyrics, near the end of "Battle Hymn of the Republic": "Die to make men free," and the updated, non-military, oft-changed lyrics: "Live to make us/all free." Whereas the poet Julia Ward Howe wrote the lyrics to inspire the abolition of slavery during the Civil War, we are now living in the Global Nuclear Age. No longer can we continue to use music to inspire, especially in our youth, the normalization of violence and heroics as preferred solution to conflict. The words "die to make men free" would surely be retracted today by Julia Ward Howe, who, after her own experiences working in the terrible Civil War, proclaimed that peace was one of the two most important causes in the world. In her Declaration she attempted to institute a national observance of a Mothers Day for Peace, rallying all mothers not to train their sons to kill other mothers' sons...but instead to find peaceful solutions to conflict. The simple change of the word "die" to the word "live" near the end of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" moves us from inspiring violence and heroics and into the possibility of nonviolent options as well.