others as can be spared, will take position as hereafter directed near Fort Sumter, by six o'clock the morning of the 14th. As soon as the ceremony begins in the fort, each vessel will dress full, in colors. When the flag is hoisted on Sumter, each vessel will man yards, or rigging if without yards, and give three cheers; then lay in and down, which having been done, each vessel will fire a salute of one hundred guns, beginning with the senior ship's first gun, and not continuing after her last gun. A body of seamen and marines will be landed under the command of Lieutenant Commander Williams who is the only officer present of those who led the assault on Sumter, which I ordered September 9, 1863, and will therefore represent the officers and men of that column. The various details will be regulated by Fleet Captain Bradford. All the officers of the squadron who can be spared from duty are invited to be present and to accompany me to the fort on that occasion. JOHN A. DAHLGREN, Commanding South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Pertinent to the occasion is the following order issued by the brigadier in command at Wilmington, N. C. Headquarters, District of Wilmington, Wilmington, N. C., April 11, 1865. Three years ago this day, a portion of the troops of this command took possession of Fort Pulaski. Here also are men who were engaged in the capture of Forts Wagner and Fisher, and the siege of Sumter. To them the brigadier general commanding takes great pleasure in publishing the following despatch received by him from Major General Schofield, commanding the department. It having been reported at their headquarters that a salute of one hundred guns, was fired at Wilmington on the 14th of April, 1861, in honor of the fall of Fort Sumter, the commanding general directs that you will cause a salute of one hun dred guns, to be fired on the 14th of the present month, from rebel guns, and with rebel ammunition in honor of the restoration of the stars and stripes over the same fort. Captain A. C. Harvey, is charged with the execution of the order, and he will consult with Lieutenant R. Williams, depot ordinance officer, as to the selection of guns and ammunition. By order of Brigadier General HAWLEY. E. LEWIS MOORE, Though the day selected coincided with the Christian festival of Good Friday, it could not change the proper and official date of the event to be commemorated, nor was the celebration in any manner discordant with the solemn religious meditations which Good Friday provokes in the minds of so many Christians. A large number of citizens went from the city of New York in the steamers Arago and Oceanus to assist in the ceremonies. Colonel Stewart L. Woodford of the 127th New York regiment, who, on the evacuation of Charleston, was appointed its military governor, had special charge of the exercises at the fort. When the multitude were assembled around the flagstaff William B. Bradbury led them in singing his song of Victory at Last, followed by Rally Round the Flag Boys. The Reverend Matthew Harris, chaplain United States army, who made the prayer at the raising of the flag over Sumter, December 27, 1860, now offered an introductory prayer, and pronounced a blessing on the old flag. Doctor R. S. Storrs, of Brooklyn, read selections from the Psalms. Then General Townsend, assistant adjutant general of the United States army, read Major Anderson's dispatch of April 18, 1861, announcing the fall of Sumter. This was followed by the appearance of sergeant Hart with a bag containing the precious old flag. It was attached to the halliards, when General Anderson, after a brief and touching address, hoisted it to the peak of the flagstaff, amid loud huzzas, which were followed by singing the Star Spangled Banner. Then six guns on the fort opened their loud voices, and were responded to by all the guns from all the batteries around which took part in the bombard 1 For the songs mentioned see appendix. ment of the fort in 1861. When all became silent, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, the chosen orator for the occasion, pro nounced an eloquent address. A benediction closed the ceremonies, and thus it was that Fort Sumter was formally repossessed by the government. Mr. Lossing states as a curious fact, derived from an old resident of Charleston, that not one of the Palmetto Guards, of which Edmund Ruffin was a volunteer, who fired upon Fort Sumter, and who first entered into possession of it in 1861, was living at the close of 1865, or six months after the war closed.1 1 Lossing's Civil War vol. III, page 482. LOYAL FLAG RAISINGS, FOLLOWING THE FALL OF FORT SUMTER. 1862. "Let the Flag of our Country wave from the spire of every church in the land, with nothing above it but the cross of Christ.”— Rev. E. A. Anderson, "Oh, raise that glorious ensign high, And let the nations see The flag for which our fathers fought May well maintain the Stars and Stripes "From every hill, in every vale, Where freemen tread the sod, And from the spires where freemen meet For prayer and praise to God; Unfurl the Flag beneath but this, The cross of Calvary !"—W. The fall of Sumter created great enthusiasm throughout the loyal states, for the flag had come to have a new and strange significance. When the stars and stripes went down at Sumter they went up in every town and county in the loyal states. Every city, town and village suddenly blossomed with banners. On forts and ships, from church spires, and flagstaffs, from colleges, hotels, store fronts, and private balconies, from public edifices, everywhere the old flag was flung out and everywhere it was hailed with enthusiasm; for its prose became poetry, and there was seen in it a sacred value which it had never before possessed. "Woe betide the unfortunate householder," said a correspondent to the Charleston News, "where colors are wanting when called for. Every window shutter is tied with the inevitable red, white and blue, and dogs, even, are wrapped in the star spangled banner. There is hardly a house in Philadelphia from which the triune colors are not now floating." The demand for flags was so great that the manufacturers could not furnish them fast enough. Bunting was exhausted, and re 1 Morris and Croffet's Mil. and Civil History of Conn., 1861-65, p. 55 2 Charleston News, May 3d. course was had to all sorts of substitutes. Loyal women wore miniature banners in their bonnets and with untiring ingenuity blended the colors with almost every article of dress; and men carried the emblem on breast pins and countless other devices. The patchwork of red, white and blue, which had flaunted in their faces for generations without exciting much emotion, in a single day stirred the pulses of the people with an imperative call to battle, and became the inspiration of national effort. All at once the dear and old flag, meant the declaration of independence; it meant Lexington; it meant Bunker Hill and Saratoga (although only in the last named battle had it been used); it meant freedom; it meant the honor and life of the republic; and a great crop of splendid banners came with the spring roses. Tens of thousands of youths donned the blue uniform at the call of the president, and advanced in line of battle, impelled not more by a conscious hatred of treason, than by the wonderful glory that had been kindled in the flag. The president's proclamation calling for 75,000 men to rally to the protection of the flag and the union (double the number certainly that had ever been assembled at one time under our banner), was addressed to the governors of all the states on the receipt of the news. As was to be expected, the answers from the slave states were in terms of treason, defiance and contempt; the responses from the free states were unanimous, full and complete, and so instantaneous that the proclamation seemed adopted by acclamation. Before a day had passed it was manifest that more than twice the number called for was ready at his command. The flag of the republic, how dear to those who were true to it they never knew till then, was raised on that Monday morning after Sumter, by spontaneous impulse, upon every staff which stood on loyal ground; and from the lakes to the Potomac, from the shores of the Atlantic to the banks of the Mississippi, the eye could hardly turn without meeting the bright banner which symbolized in its stripes the union and the initial struggle, and, in its stars the consequent growth and glory of the nation and the government which the insurgents had banded themselves together to destroy." |