[The following takes place following the fall of Fort Sumter to Union forces at the close of the American Civil War. Since the war had started here, it was deemed fitting to have the original commander of the garrison, Robert Anderson, who had surrendered the fort to the Confederates in the early days of the war, oversee a ceremony to restore the United States flag to its battlements.]
Visitors arriving at Fort Sumter’s rubble that morning stepped through two lines of soldiers, one white, one black, all sternly at attention. Between three thousand and five thousand celebrants crowded onto the acre or so of space. Several whispered to each other some news, just announced, that Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant five days earlier. In the middle of what had been the parade ground they noticed a flagstaff nearly 150 feet high, erected just for this occasion.
The ceremonies opened with a prayer by old Reverend Matthias Harris, who had been the chaplain that day on December 27, 1860, and had given the prayer when they first raised their flag over Sumter. Someone read aloud Anderson’s one-sentence summary of the bombardment, the one he had dictated to Fox. Its pounding short phrases still retained their dignity. Then Peter Hart stepped forward. In his hand he carried the garrison’s battered old mailbag. Anderson had used it to store the flags all these years. When Hart pulled the scorched and ripped flag from the bag and held it dramatically up, an animal roar erupted from the crowd. Hart and three sailors attached it to the halyards, then stood aside and waited.
Robert Anderson stood up and held his hat under his arm; his thin, white hair blew in the breeze. He stood there, very erect, for a long moment, obviously rattled by powerful emotions. He had not wanted to speak. He had thought the whole ceremony should have been a religious service, but Stanton had pressed him.
He finally began speaking. “I am here, my friends, my fellow citizens and fellow soldiers, to perform an act of duty to my country… After four long, long years of war, I restore to its proper place this dear flag.” He took the halyards in his hands, and continued. “I thank God that I have lived to see this day, and to be here, to perform this, perhaps the last act of my life, of duty to my country. My heart is filled with gratitude to that God who has so signally blessed us, who has given us blessings beyond measure.” He prayed that all nations would one day proclaim, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men.”
He tried to pull on the heavy ropes, but found the effort too taxing to do alone. With the help of Hart and the sailors the flag rose to its place. The band played “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The thousands in the audience sprang to their feet. When they reached its closing lines, “Oh, long may it wave, O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave,” people wept and hugged one another. Following Stanton’s orders, cannons boomed out from each of the old Confederate batteries that had fired on the fort, at least those still there. From Fort Johnson, from Cummings Point, from Fort Moultrie, and others came their roar. The guns of the ships throughout the harbor gave out their own salutes to Anderson’s – and America’s – old flag.
Source:
Detzer, David. “Mystic Chords of Memory: A Postscript.” Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War. New York: Harcourt, 2002. 318-19. Print.
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