PART V.

THE STARS AND STRIPES.

A. D. 1861-1872

OUR FLAG IN THE GREAT REBELLION.

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR AGAINST OUR FLAG AND UNION. OUR FLAG AT FORT SUMTER. LOYAL FLAG RAISINGS.

OUR FLAG IN SECESSIA.

SOUTHERN FLAGS.

1861-1865.

OUR FLAG SINCE THE WAR.

THE RETURN OF REGIMENTAL FLAGS AND TROPHIES.

ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS.

1865-1872.

"I am, totis viribus, against any division of the union by the North river, or by the Delaware river, or by the Potomac, or by any other river, or by any chain of mountains. I am for maintaining the independence of the nation at all events."- John Adams's Letter, March 13, 1789.

"If Kentucky to morrow unfurls the banner of resistance, I never will fight under that banner; I owe a paramount allegiance to the whole union, a subordinate one to my own state."-Henry Clay.

"When my eyes shall turn to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and Union afterwards, but everywhere spread all over in characters of living light, blazing in all its ample folds, as they float over the sea, and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, 'LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE.'"-Daniel Webster.

"There are only two sides to this question. Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war, only patriots or traitors. I express it as my conviction before God, that it is the duty of every American citizen to rally round the flag of his country."-Stephen A. Douglass.

"I have served my country under the flag of the union for more than fifty years, and as long as God permits me to live, I will defend that flag with my sword, even if my own state assails it."-Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott.

"It is a matter of great anxiety and concern to me that the slave trade is sometimes perpetrated under the flag of liberty, our dear noble stars and stripes to which virtue and glory have been constant standard bearers."-Lafayette to John Adams, 1786. "I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America could I have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery.”—Lafayette.

"The national ensign pure and simple, dearer to all our hearts at this moment as we lift it to the gale and see no other sign of hope upon the storm cloud which rolls and settles above it save that which is reflected from its own radiant hues, dearer a thousand fold dearer to us all than ever it was before while gilded by the sunshine of prosperity and playing with the zephyrs of peace It speaks for itself far more eloquently than I can speak for it. Behold it! listen to it! Every star has a tongue. Every stripe is articulate. There is no language or speech where their voices are not heard. There's magic in the web of it. It has an answer for every question. It has a solution for every doubt and every perplexity. It has a word of good cheer for every hour of gloom or of despondency. Behold it! listen to it! It speaks of earlier and later struggles. It speaks of heroes and patriots among the living and among the dead. But before all and above all other associations and memories, whether of glorious men, or glorious deeds, or glorious places, its voice is ever of union and liberty, of the constitution and the laws. Behold it! listen to it! Let it tell the story of its birth to these gallant volunteers as they march beneath its folds by day, or repose beneath its sentinel stars by night. Let it recall to them the strange eventful history of its rise and progress. Let it rehearse to them the wondrous tale of its trials and its triumphs in peace as well as in war."-Robert C. Winthrop, Oct. 3, 1861.

PART V.

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR AGAINST THE FLAG AND UNION.

When the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States, pledged to resist the extension of slavery into the territories, and to confine it to constitutional limits was ascertained, the existence of a well organized conspiracy against the unity of our republic was revealed. The leaders of this attempt to blot from our banner and escutcheon the stars of their states had chosen their time well, but in the providence of God, their efforts were futile, and Old Glory, as our flag was baptized by our soldiers, emerged from the smoke and fire of four years of civil conflict, with the lustre of its constellation increased by the addition of new stars,' and its galaxy brightened and strengthened from the experiences of the war.

The choice of presidential electors by ballot took place Nov. 6, 1860, when Mr. Lincoln received 180 of the 303 votes of the electoral college, or 123 over all opponents. But of the national popular vote he was in minority 979,163. This fact, and that in the nine slave states no republican electoral ticket was elected, gave a degree of plausibility to the unfounded assertion that he would be a sectional ruler, and that he was pledged to wage a relentless war upon the system of slavery, and the rights of the slave states. That his election had been legally and fairly conducted was not denied, or that he was pledged to absolute non-interference with the rights and domestic policy of the states; but these facts were studiously concealed from the southern people by their political leaders.

Robert Barnwell Rhett, one of the Hotspurs of South Carolina, declared that "all true statesmanship in the south consisted

West Virginia was admitted, as the thirty fifth state of the union on the 3d of June 1863, by an act of congress approved Dec. 31, 1862, and having a population of nearly 400,000. Nevada was admitted Oct. 1864; Nebraska has been admitted since the close of the war.