Memorial Day

To mark Memorial Day, Mark Steyn reflects on the interesting history of the Civil War song “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”.  (Note that link will expire.)

And somehow this combination — an improvised camp-meeting chorus with an in-joke verse about a Boston Scotsman — became the most popular marching song of the Union forces, the one bellowed out as Sherman’s men marched through Georgia in 1864.

Wikipedia has the lyrics.

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.