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Show I The Proper Salute to the I 1 Greatest of All I 1 the Flags I many have laid down their lives to save." One day there came a letter to me, all to my own little self, from my father, fa-ther, written on the battlefield of Shiloh. The envelope had a little flag in the left corner and had a narrow border in blue and red around it. Stationery Sta-tionery was thus decorated in those war days. He had been wounded slightly in the shoulder and must go to the hospital. He wanted to write to his "darling child" himself, so that if his name appeared among the wounded or killed in the daily papers I might know the truth. While he wrote a large smooth chip of wood served for his writing desk and his back was braced against the huge forest for-est tree from which the chip had been cut by some woodsman when the battle bat-tle began. This friendly tree protected him as he wrote from the bullets, which were still flying, although the tide of battle had turned in favor of the union. My father did not write how he had received the wound, but I learned afterward. aft-erward. During the fight indeed, at the crisis a standard bearer was shot through the head and he fell to the ground, bearing down the flag with the staff broken in twain. My father, standing near, saw it fall, and rushing to the spot raised the flag and carried it with both hands high as his arms could reach onward to the thickest of the fight. The regiment rallied and followed with all speed, and, alas! was cut to pieces. My father's cap was shot from his head and he was wounded in the shoulder, shoul-der, but his act, 1 have been told, helped to save the day. That impressed me greatly the fact that my father had risked his life to ! keep that flag aloft. Surely I thought in my childish brain, as I tried to reason it all out, it must be something very, very great, and it would be a very, very wicked little girl or boy who could ever see that noble banner and fail to salute it. E Question of sa-yjH(ixO sa-yjH(ixO luting the flag has : 1 ' V mj been and is now be-fiQtijLsJ) be-fiQtijLsJ) ing agitated exten-((p exten-((p iSKSf' sively, with the laud- flrP' able ob-ect of in- .TH tt) stilling into every 'I BS 'I 1 youthful heart that (u Kg ;j patriotism without fk 1 jw ' l1;: f which no country vfpVV " ij can live. Saluting , ',. x,--'' ' (! ,;.: iiuij !. Ii. w W9P'V-.- t0 soluei out it is ( XJp old to this writer. wVShjjJKrjj Away back in the '60's, when a ting child of tender years, upon the death of my mother, my father being Sn the Army of the Cumberland, I was left in the care of the widow of the late Capt. John Cleves Symmes (of arctic fame), TJ. S. A. Mrs. Symmes was the daughter of an army officer, Col. Pelchy, U, S. A., and the widow, first of Capt. Lock-wood. Lock-wood. U. S. A., then of Capt. Symmes, and was a .most heroic army woman. At the time of which I write she was SO years'old, full of vigor and activity. The civil war engrossed her entirely. Everything she could do or say for her beloved union she said and did. Her energies were often directed toward to-ward me, and well have I cause never to forget the flag. From the time I could bend my tiny body 1 was "ordered" "or-dered" to salute it. Promptly at 9 a. m. we often went on "parade" that is, we walked out over the old streets of Newport, Ky., generally ending the day at the old barricks (now destroyed), to hear the band at the evening concert. One of my childish honors was when, twice a year, we went to Cincinnati, Cin-cinnati, where "grandma" received her pension from the government in gold. As we would approach the building build-ing on Third street, over which the flag was floating, "Salute the flag. child," she would command. Then she and I would make the French courtesy she was French bending from the waist, low, almost to the ground, and in the most profound manner, man-ner, which seemed to me a kind of funereal performance. It always attracted at-tracted the attention of surprised people. peo-ple. She never noticed them, but to me it was a real concern which the bright little gold dollar my part of the pension could not wholly do away with. Everywhere and under any circumstances I would never fail to salute that flag, and she saw to it that I understood why this act of reverence rev-erence was rendered. "It is your country," and later, "it is the union it represents, for which so At that time it was not customary, and few ever did it. Now it is generally gener-ally observed: the only question raised is, What particular way is the best? I have seen many different forms of salute, and have read of many others, but to my mind there is none sweeter nor quainter than the one emplcved by a noble old lady and a little chi'd. oowing low from the waist, with the right .land just raised to the forehead, then brought down to the right side in grateful and loving salute to the greatest of all flags the Star-Spangled Banner. |