This July 4, America will celebrate its milestone 250th birthday. Besides “The Star-Spangled Banner,” another patriotic song will likely be blaring through speakers in celebration of America: the famous “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

The song’s lyrics, still sung today, were written by poet Julia Ward Howe, an abolitionist who wrote them during the Civil War.

However, her words were not the original lyrics to the famous song.

Evolution of the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’

Before the Civil War, in 1856, a man named William Steffe wrote the melody and the original lyrics to what we know today as the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” according to the Library of Congress:

Say brothers, will you meet us?Say brothers, will you meet us?Say brothers, will you meet us?On........

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