High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a hymn by American writer Julia Ward Howe using the music from the song "John Brown`s Body". Howe`s more famous lyrics were written in November 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. It became popular during the American Civil War. Since that time it has become an extremely popular and well-known American patriotic song.