Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 145, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1916 — NAMED ‘OLD GLORY’ [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NAMED ‘OLD GLORY’

Massachusetts Sailor, Captain Stephen Driver, So Christened the Starry Banner. LD GLORY” was so chris- | | tened by Capt. Stephen I I Driyer, a very pronounced X Union man, who was born in Salem, Mass., March 17, 1803. He was presented by the citizens of Salem with a large American flag when about to sail from his home port as commander of the brig Charles Doggett in 1831. As it was hoisted to the masthead and spread itself to the breeze, in a burst of patriotic ardor he christened it “Old Glory,” and that was the name he afterward used for it. After having been his daily companion and sharer of adventures and per--11 s on the deep for a half century, Capt. Driver toqk it with him to Tennessee, where he made his home in Nashville, after retiring from a seafaring life, and where he died March 3, 1886. During the war he was provost marshal of Nashville, and did much active work in the hospitals. He was outspoken in his feelings during these days of civil disagreement, and his southern partisan neighbors felt a special zeal to get possession of his muchvaunted “Old Glory,” but they repeatedly searched his home and garden in vain. - —— — — The old captain assured them that they would see it again only when it floated over a reunited Union. In order to preserve it until such time the captain, clever, as are most men of

the sea, with a needle, quilted it with his own hands into a comforter and made it his bed covering. True to his word, when peace had been restored, the captain took “Old Glory” to the Capitol building, where it was unfurled. It was on a fateful morning in February, 1862, that Nashville was startled by the cry, "Fort Donelson has fallen; the federal troops are advancing." The Sixth Ohio was the first regiment to land, and the bluecoats, to the sound of drum and trumpet, marched to the capitol and tore down the Confederate flag. Captain Driver begged the captain to let him raise .his “Old Glory.” The plea was granted, and, escorted by Lieutenant Thatcher and a detachment of soldiers, Captain Driver went to his home and ripped the sacred trophy from its hiding place. He was allowed to raise the flag with his own hands. Bareheaded, he climbed to the dome, took down the regimental flag, and replaced it with “Old Glory” amid the tumultuous cheers from the enthusiastic Union, sympathizers. As with dimmed eyes he saw it flaunting its colors proudly, he exclaimed: “Now that 'Old Glory’ has come into her own again, I am willing to die.” This historic flag is now in the custody of the Essex institute, in Salem, Mass., where it was deposited by a niece of Captain Driver, to whom he had intrusted it in 1882, four years before his death. So that after its many vicissitudes, both on land and sea, it is resting peacefully and honored today in the very port from which it sailed for the first time 85 years ago. \ ~ On June 14, 1777, congress decreed that the flag consist -of 13 red and white stripes, and 13 stars on a blue ground.

Capt. Stephen Driver.