Rich over at godancscience.org has begun unpacking the meaning of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Not sure what that has to do with science, but it is interesting.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic was a very popular patriotic song, beginning when it was first written in 1862. Recently, it has fallen out of use (except in churches during Independence Day, Fourth of July, celebrations), probably because of its Christian religious content. However, its lyrics provide rich Christian symbolism of the triumph of Jesus over His enemies. Although Julia Ward Howe’s (the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic) intent in writing the lyrics may have been to imply that the North (the "Lord’s army) was executing judgment on the South, similar to Lord executing judgment against sinners, it still remains as a rousing Christian anthem.
If I recall correctly Julia Ward Howard was a Unitarian, so I wonder if that impacts how the lyrics are understood.
Looks like she was born a Calvinist, but later married a Unitarian. However, despite the fact that she was a Unitarian, and believed that there were many ways to God, she kept her Christian faith in God, although she probably viewed the Christian story more as an example to follow than merely a system of belief.
But reading her account of writing the hymn, I'd have to say two things. One, she woke up and wrote it, so you might say that she was inspired, or at least, wrote it from her subconscious. See this from her journal:
"In spite of the excitement of the day I went to bed and slept as usual, but awoke the next morning in the gray of the early dawn, and to my astonishment found that the wished-for lines were arranging themselves in my brain. I lay quite still until the last verse had completed itself in my thoughts, then hastily arose, saying to myself, I shall lose this if I don't write it down immediately. I searched for an old sheet of paper and an old stub of a pen which I had had the night before, and began to scrawl the lines almost without looking, as I learned to do by often scratching down verses in the darkened room when my little children were sleeping. Having completed this, I lay down again and fell asleep, but not before feeling that something of importance had happened to me."
Second, I think that she used bible imagery to inspire, so perhaps she wasn't really saying anything theological as much as metaphoric. http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa0…
She could have been hallucinating or drug addled. Her recount sounds familiar to KUBLA KHAN, "A vision in a dream, a fragment."
http://www.richardhillmusic.co.uk/A%20Vision%20in…
I dunno, is there any evidence that she did opium? Heh.