"Battle Hymn of the Republic"
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish'd rows of steel:
"As you deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant my feet!
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make them free,
While God is marching on.
—Julia Ward Howe.
How to Make an American Flag
The exact proportions of the American Flag have been fixed by executive order; that is to say, by order of the President, as have other features, such as the arrangement and position of the stars. The exact size of the flag is variable, though the army has several regulation sizes. The cut given below shows the dimensions of one of the regulation army flags. The proportions fixed by executive order on May 26, 1916, are as follows:
If the width of the flag be taken as the basis and called 1, then
The length will be 1.9,
Each stripe will be 1/13 of 1,
The blue field will be .76 long and 7/13 of 1 wide.
Other features of the officially designed flag are as follows: The top and bottom stripes are red. Each State is represented by a five-pointed star, one of whose points shall be directed toward the top of the flag.