Julia Ward Howe is best known as the author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which later was sung to the tune of John Brown's Body. The poem was written while Howe was visiting Union troops near Washington, DC, in 1861, and published in the Atlantic Monthly magazine. The poem became a favorite of Union partisans and led to Howe becoming the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Julia and her husband, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, were active abolitionists. They edited the principal abolitionist periodical, Commonwealth. She also was president of the New England Woman Suffrage Association.