Posted on 09/21/2014 8:38:44 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
While Francis Scott Key's song was known to most Americans by the end of the Civil War, the flag that inspired it remained an Armistead family keepsake. It was exhibited occasionally at patriotic gatherings in Baltimore but largely unknown outside of that city until the 1870s. The flag remained the private property of Lieutenant Colonel Armistead's widow, Louisa Armistead, his daughter Georgiana Armistead Appleton, and his grandson Eben Appleton for 90 years. During that time, the increasing popularity of Key's anthem and the American public's developing sense of national heritage transformed the Star-Spangled Banner from a family keepsake into a national treasure.
(Excerpt) Read more at amhistory.si.edu ...
Lieutenant Colonel George Armistead The commander of Fort McHenry during the 1814 bombardment, Armistead became an instant hero after the battle. Portrait by Rembrandt Peale, 1816. Courtesy of Maryland Historical Society.
The Star-Spangled Banner
O say can you see, by the dawns early light,
What so proudly we haild at the twilights last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
Oer the ramparts we watchd were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foes haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, oer the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the mornings first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
Tis the star-spangled banner - O long may it wave
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battles confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washd out their foul footsteps pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lovd home and the wars desolation!
Blest with victry and peace may the heavn rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preservd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto - In God is our trust,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The Smithsonian is asking people to donate bits of the origianl flag that were clipped off and given to friends of the Armistad family as keepsakes preseumably passed down generations, as part of the ongoing restoration.
And yes, our flag is still there.
That should have been
Fort McHenry
Thanks!
We visited Fort McHenry on September 11 and got to see the World Trade Center flag. I was not prepared for the effect that seeing that flag had on my emotions.
PS: Here’s a little local news coverage about the flag’s visit to the Fort.
Of course, the idiots at the station mess up and identify a female ranger as “Gregory”, but the clip does give you a good shot of the flag and the way it was displayed at the Fort.
http://www.wbaltv.com/news/national-911-flag-visits-fort-mchenry/28017556
They added a star and a stripe for Vermont and Kentucky, but not for the states that entered the Union later (Tennessee, Ohio, and Louisiana). Then someone got the bright idea of reducing the number of stripes to 13 (as it had been originally) and just adding a star for each new state. But a flag with 15 stars and 13 stripes was never the official US flag.
Can’t believe they cut it up. Prophetic in a way.
Thanks.
I was in tears at the end of the video.
Just fabulous. Everyone needs to watch it.
His nephew was Lewis “Lo” Armistead, who died at Gettysburg fighting for the Confederacy.
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