Trivia 7-24-15 Poet and Didn't Even Know it & Friday Bonus

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Whose poem, set to the tune of "John Brown's Body," remains even today one of the nation's most popular military songs?

credit: @War Horse

Bonus:

Name the Battlefield (about this was said? this is a vague one, apologies)
"No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted." U.S. Grant.

credit @Seduzal
 
Battle Hymn of the Republic

Bonus: Ft. Donelson

Edit - A number of players gave "Battle Hymn of the Republic" as their answer to the main question, but the question asked "whose poem...," so it was asking for the name of the person who wrote the words, not the name of the poem or military song.

Hoosier
 
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Regular question: Julia Ward Howe

"The version that we know today came to be when an abolitionist author, Julia Ward Howe, overheard Union troops singing "John Brown’s Body" and was inspired to write a set of lyrics that dramatized the rightness of the Union cause. Within a year this new hymn was being sung by civilians in the North, Union troops on the march, and even prisoners of war held in Confederate jails."
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/lyrical/songs/john_brown.html

Bonus: Fort Donelson
"One reason for the unusually blunt language was that Grant believed he was dealing with Pillow, for whom he had nothing but contempt, and that Buckner’s signature only meant he was the amanuensis for his commanding general. Grant sent a terse message back to Buckner: “Sir, Yours of this date proposing Armistice, and appointment of Commissioners, to settle terms of Capitulation is just received. No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.”
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefield...ory-articles/ulysses-s-grant-the-myth-of.html
 
That would be Julia Ward Howe. This song (certainly not under the title "Battle Hymn of the Republic) was a favourite hymn in English grammar school morning services but stripped of the "Glory Glory Hallelujah" refrain and sung to a different tune.

Bonus: Fort Donelson, Sam Grant to Simon Bolivar "The Buckner Stops Here" Buckner.
 
Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe heard this song during a public review of the troops outside Washington on Upton Hill, Virginia. Rufus R. Dawes, then in command of Company "K" of the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, stated in his memoirs that the man who started the singing was Sergeant John Ticknor of his company. Howe's companion at the review, the Reverend James Freeman Clarke,[8] suggested to Howe that she write new words for the fighting men's song. Staying at the Willard Hotel in Washington on the night of November 18, 1861, Howe awoke with the words of the song in her mind and in near darkness wrote the verses to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic".[9] Of the writing of the lyrics, Howe remembered:

I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly. I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind. Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to myself, 'I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep again and forget them.' So, with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed, and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered to have used the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.[10]


Howe's "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was first published on the front page of The Atlantic Monthly of February 1862. The sixth verse written by Howe, which is less commonly sung, was not published at that time. The song was also published as a broadside in 1863 by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments in Philadelphia.


Both "John Brown" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic" were published in Father Kemp's Old Folks Concert Tunes in 1874 and reprinted in 1889. Both songs had the same Chorus with an additional "Glory" in the second line: "Glory! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!"[11]


Julia Ward Howe was the wife of Samuel Gridley Howe, the famed scholar in education of the blind. Samuel and Julia were also active leaders in anti-slavery politics and strong supporters of the Union. Samuel Howe was a member of the Secret Six, the group who funded John Brown's work.


Bonus: Fort Donelson. During the 1862 Battle of Fort Donelson in the American Civil War. Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union Army received a request for terms from the fort's commanding officer, Confederate Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner. Grant's reply was that "no terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works."
 
Battle Hymn of the Republic

Vicksburg

Edit - I did find a source that indicated that Grant initially demanded unconditional surrender at Vicksburg, as he had at Fort Donelson, though he ultimately decided, for logistical reasons, to offer parole instead.

Since he evidently did make such a demand, even though it was rescinded, I will give credit for Vicksburg as a correct answer.

Hoosier
 
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Whose poem, set to the tune of "John Brown's Body," remains even today one of the nation's most popular military songs?

credit: @War Horse

Bonus:

Name the Battlefield (about this was said? this is a vague one, apologies)
"No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted." U.S. Grant.

credit @Seduzal
Stephen Vincent Benet...Battle Hymn of the Republic--------Bonus: Battle of Fort Donelson.

Edit - Benet wrote a poem called "John Brown's Body," but he did so long after the earlier version on which the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic was based.

Hoosier
 
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Battle Hymn of the Republic (an anti-racism, anti-slavery, anti-injustice abolitionist anthem set to the music of John Brown's Body)

In February 1862 he took Fort Henry and attacked Fort Donelson. When the Confederate commander asked for terms, Grant replied, "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted." The Confederates surrendered, and President Lincoln promoted Grant to major general of volunteers.

Edit - While Grant was in the vicinity, he did not demand the unconditional surrender of Fort Henry, primarily because with the fort virtually swamped by flood waters, its commander surrendered to Andrew Hull Foote before Grant could get close enough to make such a demand.

Hoosier
 
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Whose poem, set to the tune of "John Brown's Body," remains even today one of the nation's most popular military songs?

credit: @War Horse

Bonus:

Name the Battlefield (about this was said? this is a vague one, apologies)
"No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted." U.S. Grant.

credit @Seduzal
Whose poem, set to the tune of "John Brown's Body," remains even today one of the nation's most popular military songs?

credit: @War Horse

Bonus:

Name the Battlefield (about this was said? this is a vague one, apologies)
"No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted." U.S. Grant.

credit @Seduzal
Stephen Vincent Bennett ' s poem. And Fort Donaldson.

Edit - See post # 13.

Hoosier
 
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