The Tragedy Behind 'I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day'
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.3 • 737 Ratings
🗓️ 8 August 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, in December 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was in mourning. His wife had died in a fire two years earlier. His son had been wounded in the Civil War. And the country itself felt beyond repair. That Christmas, he sat down and wrote a poem about the sound of church bells, one that began in sorrow and ended with a quiet return to hope. The words were later set to music and became “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Robert Morgan, author of 100 Bible Verses That Made America, shares the story of how one of our most familiar carols was born in one of the darkest years in American history.
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| 1:05.3 | Music And we continue with our American stories. |
| 1:19.2 | Our next story is about the famous Christmas Carol, I heard the bells on Christmas Day. |
| 1:24.7 | The song's been recorded by Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Andy Williams, |
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