Bliss wrote the music for this song, but the words were by a Chicago woman named Griswold, whose nom de plume, Paulina, sometimes caused her to be mistaken for Mrs. Bliss. Whittle thought that this song "probably" was the last one that Bliss sang on earth.[93] It is interesting that one of the Kennesaw-Allatoona messages of 4 October 1864 read: "General Sherman says hold fast. We are coming." The language of this message is reminiscent of Revelations 2:25 ("But that which ye have already hold fast till I come"), which sometimes appears as a text for "Hold the Fort."
William R. Moody, son of the great evangelist and Whittle's son-in-law, observed in 1930 that many of the old gospel songs "were of little permanent value" and that "many Moody himself outgrew." Indeed, he recalled that his father would say: "We have been singing 'Hold the Fort'
