“The Flag” was written after the second battle of Bull Run. In ante-bellum days Newport had been a place of summer resort for Southerners, some of whom appeared there during the first year of the war. They behaved very badly toward the flag. Women would draw aside the full skirts, then universally worn, to prevent their touching the Stars and Stripes. It was said that in the Episcopal Church, when the prayer for the President of the United States was read, the “Secesh” would rise from their knees to mark their dissent, resuming their attitude of devotion at its conclusion. I have always fancied that the line, “Salute the flag in its virtue, or pass on where others rule,”, was inspired by the behavior of the “Secesh” toward “Old Glory.” General Dix’s famous saying, “If any man attempts to pull down the flag, shoot him on the spot,” was much quoted in those days.
The attitude of the Southerners was very irritating. They really supposed themselves to be the superiors of the Northern men. The former subserviency of the latter in political matters was one reason of this belief. Another was that constant association with an inferior race, the negroes, had given them an exaggerated idea of their own talents and capacity. We know now that this was, and still is, a great misfortune to them.
When the members of a certain family expatiated in our presence on the whipping the North was to receive at the hands of the South we were not pleased.
My mother decided to give them a lesson. At one of our Paradise picnics she asked Mrs. David Hall, the mother of my future husband, to personate America. There was a certain realism in the selection, for Mrs. Hall’s eldest son, Rowland Minturn Hall, was then fighting for our country in the Northern army. We crowned her with flowers as the queen of the occasion and saluted her with patriotic songs.
We did not feel very pleasantly toward Jefferson Davis, whose ambition had much to do with bringing on the war. A photograph of him, in the likeness of the Devil, was circulated, while the soldiers sang:
“We’ll hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple-tree.”
By a strange caprice of fate a carriage intended for the President of the Southern Confederacy fell into the hands of a Northern abolitionist. Owing to the war, the vehicle could not be delivered to Mr. Davis, and my father bought it. It was a closed carriage, more strongly built than the Confederacy itself, and lasted for many years. If we wished to go to Newport on a rainy day, some one would say, “Oh, take the Jeff Davis, and you won’t get wet!”
For the first two years of the war we were disheartened by repeated defeats. In McClellan my father never believed, and we were glad when he was displaced.
After a long period of anxious waiting we were rejoiced by the taking of Vicksburg and the victory over Lee at Gettysburg, all on one glorious Fourth of July. The tide had turned at last!