“John Brown’s Body” (you’ve heard this song in some form even if you don’t recognize the title) was a Union marching song during the Civil War: John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave; John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave; John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave; His soul’s marching on! Brown, abolitionist and engineer of the raid on Harper’s Ferry, was hanged on December 2, 1859. From Wikipedia: On the morning of December 2, Brown wrote: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” He read his Bible and wrote a final letter to his wife, which included his will. At 11:00 he was escorted from the county jail through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers a few blocks away to a small field where the gallows were. Among the soldiers in the crowd were future Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth, who borrowed a militia uniform to gain admission to the execution. The poet Walt Whitman, in “Year of Meteors,” described viewing the execution. Brown was accompanied by the sheriff and his assistants, but no minister since he had consistently rejected the ministrations of pro-slavery clergy. […] He elected to receive no religious services in the jail or at the scaffold. He was hanged at 11:15 a.m. and pronounced dead at 11:50 a.m. His body was placed in a wooden coffin with the noose still around his neck. Image: John Brown’s Grave at North Elba, N.Y. [Reverse side.] by New York Public Library on Flickr. Ca 1870.

“John Brown’s Body” (you’ve heard this song in some form even if you don’t recognize the title) was a Union marching song during the Civil War:

John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave;

John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave;

John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave;

His soul’s marching on!

Brown, abolitionist and engineer of the raid on Harper’s Ferry, was hanged on December 2, 1859. From Wikipedia:

On the morning of December 2, Brown wrote: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” He read his Bible and wrote a final letter to his wife, which included his will. At 11:00 he was escorted from the county jail through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers a few blocks away to a small field where the gallows were. Among the soldiers in the crowd were future Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth, who borrowed a militia uniform to gain admission to the execution. The poet Walt Whitman, in “Year of Meteors,” described viewing the execution.

Brown was accompanied by the sheriff and his assistants, but no minister since he had consistently rejected the ministrations of pro-slavery clergy. […] He elected to receive no religious services in the jail or at the scaffold. He was hanged at 11:15 a.m. and pronounced dead at 11:50 a.m. His body was placed in a wooden coffin with the noose still around his neck.

Image: John Brown’s Grave at North Elba, N.Y. [Reverse side.] by New York Public Library on Flickr. Ca 1870.