American Patriotic Songs


Table of Contents

The Battle Hymn of the Republic
America (My country, 'tis of thee)

America the Beautiful

Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean

REVOLUTIONARY WAR SONGS
Yankee Doodle
Chester

CIVIL WAR SONGS: SOUTH
The Bonnie Blue Flag

Lorena
Dixie

CIVIL WAR SONGS: NORTH
The Battle Cry of Freedom
Tenting on the Old Camp Ground
When Johnny comes marching home

This Is My Country
The Yellow Rose of Texas

SERVICE SONGS
Marines:
The Marines' Hymn
Navy: Anchors Aweigh
Air Force: The Wild Blue Yonder
Army: The Caissons Go Rolling Along
Coast Guard: Semper Paratus

Navy hymn

Army hymn

GEORGE M. COHAN SONGS
You're a Grand Old Flag
Over There
The Yankee Doodle Boy

Paul and Sue's patriotic songs

God Bless America
The Star Spangled Banner
The Stars and Stripes Forever


The Battle Hymn of the Republic

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible, swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah,
His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps,
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel,
"As ye deal with my contemners so with you my grace shall deal",
Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel
Since God is marching on.

He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat;
O be swift, my soul, to answer him, be jubilant, my feet:
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me,
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Julia Ward Howe, 1861


America

My country, 'tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty,
of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died,
land of the pilgrims' pride,
from every mountainside
let freedom ring.
Let music swell the breeze
and ring from all the trees
sweet freedom's song.
Let mortal tongues awake,
let all that breathe partake
let rocks their silence break,
the sound prolong.
My native land, to thee,
land of the noble free,
thy name I love.
I love thy rocks and rills,
thy woods and templed hills,
my heart with rapture thrills,
like that above.

Our fathers' God, to thee,
Author of liberty,
to thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright
with freedom's holy light;
protect us by thy might,
great God, our king.


America the Beautiful

O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,
for purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain,
America, America, God shed his grace on thee,
and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress
a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness.
America, America, God mend thine every flaw,
confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.

O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife,
who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life.
America, America, may God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness, and every gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot's dream that sees beyond the years,
thine alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears.
America, America, God shed his grace on thee,
and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

Katherine Lee Bates, 1893

Click here for additional stanzas and melody.


Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean

O Columbia, the gem of the ocean,
the home of the brave and the free,
the shrine of each patriot's devotion:
a world offers homage to thee.
Thy mandates make heroes assemble
when liberty's form stands in view;
Thy banners make tyranny tremble,
when borne by the red, white, and blue.

When war wing'd its wide desolation
and threaten'd the land to deform,
The ark then of freedom's foundation,
Columbia, rode safe through the storm.
With the garlands of victory around her
When so proudly she bore her brave crew,
With her flag proudly floating before her,
The boast of the red, white, and blue.

The star-spangled banner bring hither,
O'er Columbia's true sons let it wave,
May the wreaths they have won never waver,
Nor its stars cease to shine on the brave.
May the service united ne'er sever,
but hold to their colors so true,
The army and navy for ever
Three cheers for the red, white, and blue.

David T. Shaw and Thomas Beckett, 1843


God Bless America

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer:

God bless America, Land that I love,
Stand beside her, And guide her,
Through the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home, sweet home.
--Irving Berlin


The Star-Spangled Banner

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream;
'Tis the star-spangled banner, oh, long may it wave
o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band that so vauntingly swore
'Mid the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A refuge and country they'd leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling or slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh, thus be it ever when free men shall stand
between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
and this be our motto, In God is our trust.
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

For notes and tune, click here.


The Stars and Stripes Forever

Let martial note in triumph float,
and liberty extend its mighty hand;
A flag appears, 'mid thunderous cheers,
the banner of the western land.
The emblem of the brave and true,
its folds protect no tyrant crew,
The red and white and starry blue
is freedom's shield and hope.

Let eagle shriek from lofty peak,
the never-ending watchword of our land;
Let summer breeze waft through the trees,
the echo of the chorus grand.
Sing out for liberty and light,
Sing out for freedom and the right;
Sing out for union and its might,
O patriotic sons!

Other nations may deem their flags the best,
and cheer them with fervid elation,
But the flag of the North and South and West
is the flag of flags, the flag of freedom's nation.

Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard for ever;
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let despots remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray
That their might and their right it waves for ever!

--John Philip Sousa


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Last updated: July 04, 2004 .

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