Civil War Music: May God Save the Union

Reverend G. Douglass Brewerton wrote the words to this song before the outbreak of war. When Southerners pushed for states’ rights, young Northerners responded with passion for preservation of the Union. When the first shots of the Civil War were fired, many Northerners joined the fight for the Union cause. 

The lyrics are:

Short version

May God save the Union! God grant it may stand,
The pride of our people, the boast of our land;
Still, still ‘mid the storm may our banner float free,
Unrent and unriven o’er earth and o’er sea.

May God save the Union! The Red, White and Blue,
Our States keep united the dreary day through;
Let the stars tell the tale of the glorious past,
And bind us in Union forever to last.

Long version

May God save the Union! God grant it to stand
the pride of our people, the boast of our land,
still, still 'mid the storm may our banner float free;
unrent and unriven o'er earth and o'er sea.

May God save the Union! We trust in its might,
in time of the tempest, in fear and in flight,
we'll fail not, we'll faint not if still in the sky
we see all the stars in the azure field fly.

May God save the Union! Still, still may it stand
upheld by the strength of the patriot hand,
to cement it our Fathers ensanguined the sod,
to keep it we kneel to a merciful God.

May God save the Union! The Red, White and Blue,
our states keep united the dreary day through,
let the stars tell the tale of the glorious past
and bind us in Union forever to last.