We Are Coming, Father Abra'am 300,000 More, a poem written by James S. Gibbons, was set to music by eight different composers, including Stephen Foster

Stephen Foster

Stephen Collins Foster , known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century...

. William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post.-Youth and education:...

 published one version (with music by Luther Orlando Emerson

Luther Orlando Emerson

-Biography:Emerson was born in Parsonsfield, Maine on August 3, 1820. He attended Parsonsfield Seminary and Effingham Academy, originally planning to be a doctor. Later he studied music under Isaac Woodbury. He taught for eight years in Salem, Massachusetts...

 (1820–1915). Bryant's newspaper originally published the poem and, because it was originally published anonymously, many assumed it was his, and it was widely republished, so Bryant issued a statement denying his authorship. The poem and music came in response to a call by Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

 on July 1 for volunteers to fight the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

.