What made Root's song so compelling? According to Kenneth A. Between 500,000 and 700,000 copies were produced. That fall, fourteen printing presses working round the clock were unable to keep up with the demandįor copies. Public response to "The Battle Cry of Freedom" was overwhelming. Root recalled years later, "From there the song went into the army, and the testimony in regard to its use in the camp and on the march, and even on the field of battle, from soldiers and officers, up to the good President himself, made me thankful that if I could not shoulder a musket in defense of my country I could serve her in this way." Heaps, writing in "The Singing Sixties," call "The Battle Cry of Freedom" "the type of rousing tune which appears seldom during a period of war and but once in a generation."Ĭomposed in haste in a single day in response to President Abraham Lincoln's July 1862 call forģ00,000 volunteers to fill the shrinking ranks of the Union Army, the song was first performed on July 24 and again on July 26 at a massive war rally. Although "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is today considered the preeminent Northern War song, Union soldiers would have been more likely to bestow that honor upon "The Battle Cry of Freedom." Willard A.
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