(CIVIL WAR--MARYLAND.) Robert L. Annan. A rousing flag presentation speech delivered to the Potomac Home Brigade. Autograph Manuscript Signed. 2 pages, 12 x 7 1/4 inches; worn with several short closed tears and tape repairs, staining. With typed transcript. Frederick, MD, 30 September 1861
A patriotic speech delivered to Maryland troops while training for the front, presenting them with a specially made American flag--and invoking the Star Spangled Banner. In part:
"Soldiers, you are engaged in a just and holy cause. You saw your country's danger and hastened to her rescue. . . . But you have still more strongly exhibited your loyalty in your willingness to risk your lives in defence of your country. . . . This attempt by traitors to subvert our government, to forge for freemen the galling chains of slavery, to build up a despotism upon the ruins of this great & glorious republic . . . cannot and will not be permitted. . . . The Union Ladies of Emmitsburg . . . have by their efforts and with their own fair hands wrought into grace and beauty this handsome banner, the emblem of all our country's greatness, glory, and grandeur, and they would today thus publicly present you with this, our country's flag. . . . See to it that it is not to be lowered during this contest, for when our flag goes down, this country goes down with it. . . . .Let no traitorous or vandal hand be raised to strike it down while you are its guardians, rally under its bright and ample folds and there renew your vows . . . to defend the 'Star Spangled Banner' which will then continue to wave o'er the 'land of the free and the home of the brave.'"
The speech was made at the request of the Union Ladies of Emmitsburg to the Cavalry Company C of the 1st Potomac Home Brigade, then in training at Frederick, Maryland. The author and speaker Dr. Robert Lewis Annan (1831-1907) of nearby Emmitsburg, MD was a graduate of Washington and Jefferson College and what became the New York University medical school. He had two brothers serving in the company. The regiment went on to fight at Gettysburg.
See "Another Flag Presentation" in the Frederick Examiner, 2 October 1861, as cited in "Spending Time at Camp Frederick" in the blog "A River Divided: The Civil War Along the Potomac," 1 November 2016.
Provenance: collection of Arthur G. "Gil" Barrett.
