Wednesday, May 4, 2011

LINCOLN AND LYRICS

LINCOLN AND LYRICS
During this same period of history, America was undergoing similar civil unrest. Matters relating to slavery, commerce and succession caused the greatest casualty on American soil to date. As the Civil War dragged on deadly destruction and monstrous mortality mounted heaping up a colossal mountain of devastation. Perhaps the personal hinge upon which the great door of history turned at that time was Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the U.S.. In perusing his writing and accounts of contemporaries, it becomes clear that he carried heavily the yoke of responsibility of the carnage. He wished and sought divine intervention to end the war and allow a healing era to come to the new nation. The story is told of an incident wherein President Lincoln was in the company of some contemporaries as a troop of Union Soldiers passed by in review en route to southern battle fields. The were singing a song conveying the message of John Brown’s body molding in the grave. Lincoln opined to his colleagues that the song disturbed him. He said that a song of such degradation would never have the power to end the war. It promoted the more ignoble tendencies of man. Lincoln asked if there were someone who could write a song of hope, a song of meaning, which would elicit nobility and reason, thereby bringing this great war to conclusion. There was such a person who could do just that...Julia Ward Howe. Her opus became one of the most compelling ingredients to bring about an end to the war: The Battle Hymn of the Republic. It caused it’s hearer, or better yet, it’s singer to seek truth from a higher source, to transcend personal petty interests and look to the universal good of man. Many believe this song as well as some of the songs of Stephen Foster, had greater impact in bringing the war to an end than did the artillery. This music had, and continues to have the power to change the hearts of men, which ultimately determine the destiny of civilization more than firearms.

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