There Is Power in a Union Is Based on the Battle Cry of Freedom a Song Written in 1862

By Emma

There Is Power In A Union" is based on "The Battle Cry of Freedom" a song written in 1862 by American composer George F. Root (1825–1895) during the American Civil War. A patriotic song advocating the cause of the Union, it became so popular that composer H. L. Schreiner and lyricist W. H. Barnes adapted it for the Confederate States of America, and it was used as the campaign song for the United States Republican Party in the 1864 election.

The opening two lines of the first verse ‘there is power in a factory, power in the land power in the hand of the worker’ implies that the people living on the land and the workers have power, and a lot of it to. ‘But it all amounts to nothing if together we don’t stand’ as the next line reads, meaning the power we have is all but nothing if no one will stand and fight.

Verse two reads, ‘ now the lessons of the past we all learn in workers blood’. Is saying that people don’t realize their mastics till it’s to late and some one has gotten heart or even died. ‘the mistakes of the bosses we must pay for’ is saying that even if it was not the works fault they still have to pay the price and some times the bosses get away with it.

The chorus of the song starts with ‘ the union forever defending our fights’ speaks for it self. ‘Down with the blackleg, all workers unite’ is the second line. Blackleg is a person or a group who do not take part in strikes or rallies. The third line reads ‘with our brothers and sisters from many far of land’s saying that it is moor than one or two factory it is a world thing.

‘Now I long for the morning that they realize, brutality and unjust lows cannot defeat us.’ As the opening two lines of the fourth verse means he wishes that people would wake up and see all the things that are wrong with the economy. ‘Brutality and unjust lows cannot defeat us’ are the lows that say it has to be the bosses way.

The last verse of the song says ‘ money speaks for money and the devil four his own’ means that money is money and that will never change. The ‘devil for his self’ dit, is like saying money is the devil because of the things that it douse to you.