Julia Ward Howe was a writer, poet, reformer, lecturer, and author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"; she dedicated her life to a number of causes, but especially to restoring and maintaining peace after the Civil War. Most of her writings include the central theme of peace, accompanied by reform issues pertaining to women, slavery, and war.

Howe was born on 27 May 1819 in New York City to well-to-do parents, Samuel, a New York banker, and Julia (Cutler) Ward. Julia Ward died of tuberculosis when her daughter, Julia, was five, and an aunt, Eliza Cutler, reared young Julia and educated her privately. In her early twenties, Julia Ward met Bostonian Samuel Gridley Howe, a well-known hero of the Greek Revolution and head of the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston. According to Howe biographer Deborah Pickman Clifford, Samuel's maturity, good looks, and popularity as a philanthropist captivated...