The following is an article found in The Iola Register (Iola, Kansas) on Friday, May 25, 1894, written by Professor J.D. Butler.
“Old Glory”, is General Sherman’s name for the Union flag, in his article “Old Shady,” in a recent number of the North American Review, he was speaking of the flag raised on Fort McAllister, in 1864, In two octaves of his memoirs, however, the term “Old Glory” is never once used, and it therefore seems to have been unknown to him when he wrote that book. It proved to be unknown to many veterans among my acquaintances. Others to whom the name was familiar could give no account of its origin. I hence addressed an inquiry to the General himself. In his answer he wrote, “I do not remember exactly when or where it was that I first heard the term ‘Old Glory’ given to the Union flag, but I have heard it at army meetings in recent years.”
Sheet music for the song, Old Glory. Published in 1895.
Discovering that the highest military dignitary was ignorant where so notable a name as “Old Glory” came from, I became doubly desirous to learn when and where the term was born.
It was some time before I found the expression “Old Glory” in print at an earlier date than 1875. In a Chicago volume of that year, “Songs of Yesterday,” I found these lines:
Have you read in any book, heard anybody tell
Of the gallant Third Ohio, Lieutenant Colonel Bell!
Their talk was rough as boulders, and then they named the flag
They christened it “Old Glory.” or just “that blessed rag.”
Many inquiries and something of random research long proved fruitless, but at last through Mr. George G. Putnam, of Salem, Mass., who saw my request in the State Journal, I have found what I sought. Army men who know what may be called the genesis and exodus of “Old Glory,” will be glad to see it retold for the sake of the ignoramus majority. Another reason for my tale of truth is that Rev. Mr. Lovering in his election sermon says that a Massachusetts regiment baptized our flag in their blood and called it “Old Glory.”
The name “Old Glory” was given by William Driver to the flag which he presented to the Sixth Ohio Regiment, February 25, 1862. This presentation was pre-eminently memorable, and the flag itself no less so. It was made in Nashville the day of its capture by Union forces, and by the only out-spoken Union man whom they found there.
That man, William Driver, was born in Salem, Massachussets, 1808. As a sea captain, he was twenty years “backing and filling all over the globe,” but in 1837 had settle in Nashville. His standing for the god-father and something more at the christening of our flag as “Old Glory,” appears in the following letter, written two days after the event, to his daughter in Salem, and speedily published by the Salem Register of February 27, 1862:
“Thank God! The flag of the Union now floats over our Capitol. The Ohio Sixth, the first regiment to land from the transports, hoisted their small flag on our State House. About an hour after, I carried my flag, Old Glory, as we have been used to call it, to the Capitol, presented it to the Ohio Sixth, and hoisted it with my own hands to the Capitol, amid the heaven-shaking sheers of thousands – over this proud city, where for eight months I have been treated with scorn. Again and again have I told these deluded men: “Gentlemen, I will yet hoist my flag, Old Glory, over your fallen Capitol. Then gentlemen, I am ready to lie down with my fathers.’ That hour has come. My child, I am satisfied.”
The Captain’s letter describes how his “Old Glory” has eluded rebel spies, being sewed in the comforter in his bed, and how his bed-room had been a magazine so contrived that, if necessary, he could blow it up in a moment, and “go to glory,” as he termed it, “with his flag.” “Old Glory” went down to the gulf with the Sixth Ohio. It’s end was seriocomical. It was eaten up by mules, who got at it when stowed in the headquarters wagon in October, 1863. The shreds were gathered up and distributed as relics, some of which are still preserved in Salem. “Old Glory” was a magnificent banner. It’s size was 17×35 feet. It had been presented to the captain while in command of the brig Charles Doggett, by lady residents in an East India port, for some noble deeds. The story of the presentation he himself told, in words that ought never to be forgotten:
“Let me tell you about ‘Old Glory’ and the first time he gave his beauty to the breeze. He was rolled up in the form of a triangle, with a thread easy to be broken around him, the hilliards bent on, all ready, when a young sailor stepped forward, with lines in hand, hat off, and said ‘My countrymen! In ancient times, when a voyage was looked upon with superstitious dread, it was the custom on the eve of the departure, to roll the banner up in a form like this (a triangle). When all was ready, a priest stepped forward, and taking the banner in his left hand and sprinkled it with consecrated water, would dedicate it to the God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, turning a point of the triangle upward as he named each person, and calling on the sacred Unity to bless the national emblem and the voyagers. The flag was then hoisted to the masthead, the cables cast off, and the ship moved away. We adopt their form this day and consecrate this flag, ‘Old Glory” to the God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, and to the Union and Constitution of the United States, and I here swear never to desert that Government or its flag while life lasts.”
“And then with a jerk of the lines, ‘Old Glory’ floated on the breeze, not mine, but God’s and the country’s. Its folds were of the finest merino and french lisse, though it is now old and storm-worn.”
When beginning research, I had no thought that “Old Glory” could boast and origin so glorious. But “Old Driver,” as the Nashville women hissingly called the Captain, was of all men most worthy to be compared to the seraph Abdiel – “faithful found among the faithless, faithful only he.” Truly the history of a word is worth more than the history of a campaign.
Notes:
In celebration of his appointment as a master mariner and commander of his own ship, Driver’s mother “and a group of young Salem female admirers” sewed the flag and gave it to him as a gift in 1824. With this flag flying over his ship, Driver went on to have a colorful career as an American merchant seaman, sailing to China, India, Gibraltar, and the South Pacific. He participated in the tortoiseshell trade and knew some Fijian. In 1831, while voyaging in the South Pacific, Driver’s ship “was the sole surviving vessel of six that departed Salem the same day.” Driver subsequently picked up 65 descendants of the survivors of the HMS Bounty and brought them back to Pitcairn Island; Driver “is said to have been convinced that God saved his ship for that purpose.”
In 1860, Driver and his wife and daughters repaired the flag, sewing on ten more stars, and Driver added (by appliqué) a small white anchor in the lower right corner, to symbolize his maritime career. By that time, the secession crisis had begun, and Driver’s family was split. While Driver was a staunch Unionist, two of his sons were fervent Confederates who enlisted in local regiments, and one died from wounds suffered at Perryville. “One can only imagine the tensions between the Salem-born and Nashville-born Drivers, whose relations may have already been strained by first- and second-family rivalry. In March 1862, Driver wrote: “Two sons in the army of the South! My entire house estranged…and when I come home…no one to soothe me.”
James Davie Butler
Congregational clergyman, professor, author, lecturer, b. Rutland, Vt. He graduated from Middlebury College,Vt. (1836), and Andover Theological Seminary (1840). Before coming to Wisconsin, he toured Europe (1842-1843), lectured and preached in New England Congregational churches, and taught at Norwich Univ. and Wabash College. In 1858 Butler came to the Univ. of Wisconsin as professor of Greek and the humanities, holding this position until 1867 when the university was reorganized; Butler was not reappointed. He continued to reside in Madison, and became the self-appointed dean of literary activity. A scholar in the old sense of the word, Butler disliked specialization, and his interests ranged widely. He was popular as a lecturer, traveled extensively, and was a member of numerous cultural organizations. He was a prolific writer, and contributed articles on a wide range of subjects to the Nation and other magazines, and wrote literature promoting immigration for the Burlington and Missouri River R.R. One such piece was Nebraska, it’s Characteristics and Prospect, on why Nebraska is a great place to live and filled with many statistics.
Sources:
The Iola Register (Iola, Kansas), Friday, May 25, 1894
Wikipedia, Old Glory