How the Flag Became Old GloryScott, Emma Look, Mrs.
History
How the Flag Became Old Glory
Scott, Emma Look, Mrs.
Flags -- United States; United States -- History
Up the hill, amidst rattle of drum and sounding trumpets, passed the
bluecoats to the Capitol. There a small regimental flag was being
hoisted. Suddenly a hush fell upon the waiting victors. The figure of
Captain Driver appeared high against the dome of the Statehouse. The
strains of "The Star-Spangled Banner" burst upon the ear; and amid
cheers and cries of "Old Glory! Old Glory!" that echoed to the distant
hills the old sea flag unfurled and floated above the topmost pinnacle
of the Capitol of Tennessee. And thus Old Glory received her formal
christening.
[Illustration: AMID CHEERS AND CRIES OF "OLD GLORY! OLD GLORY!" THAT
ECHOED TO THE DISTANT HILLS THE OLD SEA FLAG UNFURLED AND FLOATED
ABOVE THE TOPMOST PINNACLE OF THE CAPITOL OF TENNESSEE.]
Swarming over the city, bent on various quests, went the victorious
Federals. Not so the old sailor. The revered flag, flaunting the colors
so joyously above his head once more, was far too weather-beaten, he
feared, to withstand long the stiff breeze blowing about the elevated
site. Torn to ribbons it must not be, howsoever good the cause.
Quietly he watched and waited about the grounds until after nightfall,
when, under cover of the darkness, he again ascended the dome, rescued
his beloved old flag, and swung in its place a big merino one that had
figured as a campaign flag in 1840, when "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" was
the slogan of the Whig Party. He then carried Old Glory to his home and
laid it tenderly away in the old sea locker so long dedicated to its
use.
Very gradually thereafter the pleasing appellation, Old Glory, made its
impress upon the speech of the populace, until, in the later nineties,
the "Hoosier Poet" was moved to expression in verse:
Old Glory, the story we're wanting to hear,
Is what the plain facts of your christening were,
For your name, just to hear it,
Repeat it and cheer it, s'tang to the spirit
As salt as a tear.
And seeing you fly and the boys marching by,
There's a shout in the throat and a blur in the eye
And an aching to live for you always or die;
And so, by our love for you floating above,
And the scars of all wars and the sorrows thereof,
Who gave you the name of Old Glory?
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.
But to the query the sealed lips of the old seaman answered not. For him
had come the higher summons.
Captain Driver's death occurred in Nashville in 1886. At the head of his
grave, in the old City Cemetery, stands a unique monument of his own
designing. Upon an old tree trunk, in stone, appears a ship's anchor and
cable. At the top of the anchor is inscribed the beloved pseudonym of
his heart's own coinage, above him here, even in his last sleep: "His
ship, his country, and his flag--Old Glory." About his body when placed
within the casket was wrapped a United States flag.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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