When the applause had subsided, a tall, fine-looking young fellow in a major’s uniform exclaimed, “Gentlemen, if we’d had your songs we’d have licked you out of your boots! Who couldn’t have marched or fought with such songs? while we had nothing, absolutely nothing, except a bastard Marseillaise, The Bonny Blue Flag, and Dixie, which were nothing but jigs. Maryland, my Maryland was a splendid song, but the tune, old Lauriger Horatius, was about as inspiring as the Dead March in Saul, while every one of these Yankee songs is full of marching and fighting spirit.”
Then turning to the General he said, “I shall never forget the first time I heard that chorus, ‘Rally round the Flag.’ It was a nasty night during the Seven Days’ fight, and if I remember rightly, it was raining. I was on picket, when just before ‘taps’ some fellow on the other side struck up The Battle Cry of Freedom and others joined in the chorus until it seemed to me that the whole Yankee army was singing. A comrade who was with me sang out, ‘Good heavens, Cap, what are those fellows made of, anyway? Here we’ve licked them six days running, and now, on the eve of the seventh, they’re singing “Rally round the Flag?”’ I am not naturally superstitious, but I tell you that song sounded to me like the knell of doom; my heart went down into my boots; and though I’ve tried to do my duty, it has been an uphill fight with me ever since that night.”
Perhaps the most romantic and inspiring occasion on which The Battle Cry of Freedom was ever sung was at the raising of the flag over Fort Sumter on the 14th of April, 1865, that being the fourth anniversary of the day when Major Anderson had evacuated the fort after his brave defense. A large number of citizens went from New York in excursion steamers, to assist in the celebration. Colonel Stewart L. Woodford, recently the United States minister to Spain, was master of ceremonies. The oration was delivered by the eloquent Henry Ward Beecher, but the supreme moment of interest came when Major-General Anderson, who had added General to the Major in the past four years, after a touching and tender address, received from Sergeant Hart a bag containing the precious old flag which had waved in the breeze through those days of fierce bombardment, the din of which had been heard around the world. The flag had been saved for such a time as this, and now, by order of Abraham Lincoln, it was brought back to wave again over Fort Sumter. It was attached to the halyards, and General Anderson hoisted it to the head of the flagstaff amid loud huzzas. One can imagine the inspiration of the occasion, as William B. Bradbury led the singing of The Battle Cry of Freedom. How the tears ran down the cheeks, and hearts overflowed with thanksgiving as they shouted the chorus underneath the folds of the very flag that had received the first baptism of fire at the beginning of the Rebellion:—
“The Union forever, hurrah! boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitor, up with the star,
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom!”
HENRY CLAY WORK