The earliest appearance of the "Harper's ferry" words seems to have been in J. S. Dye's "History of the Plots and Crimes of the Great Conspiracy to Overthrow Liberty in the United States of America" (1866).

"When the soldiers struck up the John Brown song [at Charleston in 1865], it filled the eyes of the blacks with tears, and their hearts with joy to hear the boys sing:

John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save,
But though he lost his life, in struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on,

Chorus—
       Glory, Glory, Hallelujah !
       Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!
       Glory, Glory, Hallelujah !
       His soul is marching on.

John Brown was a hero undaunted, true and brave,
And Kansas knew his valor when he fought her rights to save;
And now, though the grass grows green above his grave,
His soul is marching on.

Glory, &c.

He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so true,
And he frightened old Virginny till she trembled through and through;
They hung him for a traitor, themselves a traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on.

Glory, &c.

John Brown was John the Baptist, of Christ we are to see,
Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,
And soon throughout the sunny South the slaves shall all be free.
For his soul is marching on.

Glory, &c

The conflict that he heralded, he looks from Heaven to view,
On the army of the Union, with his flag red, white, and blue.
And Heaven shall ring with anthems, o'er the deed they mean to do,
For his soul is marching on.

Glory, .fee.

Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,
The death-stroke of oppression, in a better time and way,
For the dawn of old John Brown, has brightened into day.
And his soul is marching on.

Glory, &c