"For more than 20 years, we have been facilitating legal access to free sheet music. If you appreciate and use Free-scores.com, please consider making a donation."
William Steffe (1830?1890) collected and edited a camp-meeting song with the traditional "Glory Hallelujah" refrain, in about 1856. It opened with "Say, brothers, will you meet us / on Canaan's happy shore?" The tune became widely known.
Early in the American Civil War, this tune was used to create the Union army marching song "John Brown's Body", which begins with the lyrics "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on."
In November 1861, Julia Ward Howe, having heard this version, used the tune as the basis of her new verse, later known as "The Battle Hymn of the Republic'. Text source : Wikipedia (Hide extended text) ... (Read all)