George Frederick Root has become particularly successful during the American Civil War, as the composer of martial songs such as Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! (The Prisoner's Hope), The Vacant Chair, Just before the Battle, Mother, and The Battle Cry of Freedom.

Battle Cry of Freedom (1862) has become well-known even in England.

He had written the first song concerning the war, The First Gun is Fired, only two days after the conflict began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter.

He ultimately scores at least thirty-five war-time "hits", in tone from the bellicose to the ethereal.

His songs are played and sung at both the home front and the real front.

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, written from the prisoner's point of view and published in 1864 to give hope to the Union prisoners of war, becomes popular on troop marches, and is one of the most popular songs of the American Civil War.

The chorus tells his fellow prisoners that hope is coming.

The song has since been parodied numerous times, an early variant being "Damn, Damn, Damn the Filipinos", a song popular U.S. with troops during the Philippine-American War.

It also lends the music to an Irish patriotic song, "God Save Ireland", as well as the children's song "Jesus Loves the Little Children".

Root, named after the German-born British composer George Frideric Handel, was born at Sheffield, Massachusetts.

Leaving his farming community for Boston at eighteen, flute in hand, intending to join an orchestra, he had worked for a while as a church organist in Boston, and from 1845 has taught music at the New York Institute for the Blind, where he had met Fanny Crosby, with whom he will compose fifty to sixty popular secular songs.

In 1850, he had made a study tour of Europe, staying in Vienna, Paris, and London.

He had returned to teach music in Boston, Massachusetts as an associate of Lowell Mason, and later Bangor, Maine, where he was director of the Penobscot Musical Association and presided over their convention at Norumbega Hall in 1856.

Root will spend most of his career (when not writing, or helping to manage his publishing company) traveling and teaching at Musical Institutes that move from town to town.

Instrumental in developing mid- and late-nineteenth century American musical education, he applies a version of the teaching method of Pestalozzi, a Romantic who felt that education must be broken down to its elements in order to have a complete understanding of it.

He is a follower of the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg.

On his return from Europe, Root had begun composing and publishing sentimental popular songs, a number of which achieve fame as sheet-music, including those with Fanny Crosby: "Hazel Dell", "Rosalie the Prairie Flower", "There's Music in the Air" and others, which are (according to Root's New York Times obituary) had been known throughout the country in the antebellum period.

Root had chosen to employ a pseudonym George Wurzel (German for Root) to capitalize on the popularity of German composers during the 1850s.

Besides his popular songs, he also composes gospel songs in the vein of Ira Sankey (known as The Sweet Singer of Methodism) and collects and edits volumes of choral music for singing schools, Sunday schools, church choirs and musical institutes.

He has also composed various sacred and secular cantatas including the popular "The Haymakers" in 1854.

Root's cantatas were popular on both sides of the Atlantic throughout the nineteenth century.

Building on his talent for song-writing, Root had moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1859 to work for his brother's music publishing house of Root & Cady.