Hands Across the Sea (march)

thumb|right|upright|"Hands Across the Sea" sheet music cover

"Hands Across the Sea" is an American military march composed by John Philip Sousa in 1899.

History

The march was written in 1899. When the march premiered on April 21 at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, the audience insisted that it be repeated three times. The march is "addressed to no particular nation, but to all of America's friends abroad."

In 1901, John Philip Sousa heard the Virginia Tech Regimental Band (The Highty-Tighties) playing "The Thunderer" at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Sousa was so impressed that he dedicated a performance of his latest march, "Hands Across the Sea", to the band.

Sousa prefaced the sheet music's score with a quotation from the English diplomat John Hookham Frere: "A sudden thought strikes me; let us swear eternal friendship." The march was composed in the wake of the Spanish–American War and is idealistic, in addition to patriotic, in nature.