My daughter recently competed in the Latin Olympics (a competition of primary grade students - she took ribbons in 2 events) at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  During the Latin Oratory, one of the kids sang the above song in Latin, claiming ancient Roman soldiers sang it going into battle. I think the kid was a millenia or two off in his historical context. I know the song was originally about John Browns body, and prior to that the melody may well have been in use. Does anyone here have the skinny on this?

My Encyclopædia Britannica has a long article on John Brown (1800-59) and his part in the Harpers Ferry stand. He was tried and hanged for treason but Federal soldiers adopted the song of John Brown and "his soul goes marching on" as the war for emancipation of slaves was waged.

I’m too busy to do more now but will try later if anyone’s interested.

J

According to this site, the lyrics are by Julia Ward Howe. Just who composed the melody remains something of a mystery, according to John Brown’s Body.net.

I find it highly improbable that the song dates back that far - how many other songs do you know whose melodies date back to the Roman Empire? Still, cute.

~Silver

highly improbable that the song dates back that far

Notwithstanding cute, I too find it extremely unlikely that this melody should date farther back than PERHAPS a couple of hundred years. I’m prepared to be proven wrong, of course (as ever). However, if the High School Roman Centurian Memorial Marching Band wants to play "Flat foot Floogie with the Floy Floy", you won’t hear me complain.  ;D

You might find this article from About.com interesting:

Writing of the Battle Hymn of the Republic

It confirms some of the previous statements.  Concerning the origin of the tune:

The result was a poem, published first in February 1862 in the Atlantic Monthly, and called "Battle Hymn of the Republic." The poem was quickly put to the tune that had been used for "John Brown’s Body" — the original tune was written by a Southerner for religious revivals — and became the best known Civil War song of the North.

-Tim

Leave it to them damnyankees to steal some southerner’s song . . .  ;)

And here’s a rather longer commentary:

 The melody for The Battle Hymn of the Republic has had quite the most varied career in the history of American patriotic song. It came into being as a Southern camp-meeting song early enough to have been included in Henry Ward Beecher’s Plymouth Collection of 1852. With the organization of the 12th Massachusetts Infantry in 1861 two Maine men in the second battalion introduced to camp “Say brothers, will you meet us, On Canaan’s happy shore?” To this melody the glee club of the unit evolved a set of verses half applied to one of their own members, a Scotch John Brown. When these words became the characteristic song of the regiment, the officers tried in vain to have the words applied to Ellsworth, the first Northern commissioned officer who had fallen in the War. Inevitably many new versions were composed on John Brown of Ossawatomie—by H. H. Brownell, Edna Dean Proctor, Charles Sprague Hall, and anonymous writers; and from these developed variants beyond recall. The hymn had become a war ballad of widest popularity; but the ballad was to be rehabilitated as a hymn again. This occurred when Julia Ward Howe, one of a party to visit the Army of the Potomac in December, 1861, was urged by James Freeman Clarke to dignify the chant with adequate words. Her attempt was christened by James T. Fields and appeared in the Atlantic, February, 1862, as The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The marked differences between these three lyrics show how vital is the relation between words and music. The colourless, seven-syllabled, thrice-repeated line, “Say brothers, will you meet us,” is plaintive, if not dreary, in effect. The eleven syllables of “John Brown’ss body lies a-mouldering in the grave,” with their stronger vocal quality and their sinister suggestiveness, have a primitive folk-quality and a martial vigour. The iambic heptameters of “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord” rise to the elevation of a religious processional.

Source: The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: XXVI. Patriotic Songs and Hymns - § 5. Civil War Songs; Dixie; The Battle Hymn of the Republic

-Tim