Ho, my comrades! see the signal
Waving in the sky!
Reinforcements now appearing,
Victory is nigh.
“Hold the fort, for I am coming,”
Jesus signals still;
Wave the answer back to heaven,
“By Thy grace we will.”
See the mighty host advancing,
Satan leading on;
Mighty men around us falling,
Courage almost gone!
Fierce and long the battle rages,
But our help is near;
Onward comes our great Commander,
Cheer, my comrades, cheer!
Note: the later verse(s) below have been reconstructed from historical memory and may not be word-for-word identical to the original published text.
Public domain hymn text (1870). Words by Philip Bliss.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Philip Bliss, already discussed elsewhere in this collection as composer of the tune to 'It Is Well with My Soul' (hymn 7) and author of 'Wonderful Words of Life' (hymn 53), wrote both the words and music of this hymn in 1870 after hearing evangelist D. L. Moody recount, during a sermon, a story from the American Civil War concerning the Battle of Allatoona Pass in Georgia, in which a besieged Union garrison under General John Corse held its defensive position against a much larger Confederate force after receiving a signal-flag message from General William Tecumseh Sherman on a distant mountain reading, 'Hold the fort; I am coming.'
Bliss reportedly composed the hymn immediately upon returning home from hearing Moody's sermon, deliberately building an entire military-themed hymn text around the same signal-flag rescue image Moody had just used, treating the historical battle's actual signal message as a direct metaphor for Christ's own promise to eventually return to reinforce and rescue believers currently struggling against spiritual opposition.
The hymn's sustained military imagery throughout — 'comrades,' 'reinforcements,' 'mighty host advancing,' 'courage almost gone' — reflects a broader style of muscular, battle-themed gospel hymn writing that flourished particularly in the years immediately following the Civil War, when martial imagery and vocabulary remained fresh and immediately recognizable to American congregations who had, in many cases, personally lived through or lost family members in the actual conflict only a few years earlier.
The hymn achieved enormous popularity through Moody's own revival campaigns, becoming one of the signature songs of the broader Moody-Sankey evangelistic movement during the 1870s, sung specifically at moments in revival meetings meant to encourage congregations facing discouragement or spiritual opposition to persevere a little longer, trusting that reinforcement, much like the actual besieged garrison at Allatoona Pass, was already on its way.
