F.D.R. Visits Antietam on 75th Anniversary of the Battle-- Part 1

From the Antietam Journal blog.  "FDR visits the Battlefield:  A Presidential visit" by Ranger Mike Gamble.

The seventy-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1937.

Some folks in attendance still had actual memories of the battle 75 years later.  Approximately fifty Civil War veterans and a crowd of thirty-five thousand gathered to hear the President of the United States m Franklin D. Roosevelt, give a stirring speech and to view a re-enactment of the battle.

From  the grandstand overlooking the famous Bloody Lane, visitors were able to view 1,000 National Guardsmen simulate battle.  Units of Guardsmen came from Maryland, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia as well as active duty soldiers from Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

Following the battle,  the crowd stood for a playing of the National Anthem as Boy Scouts marched in front of the viewing stand with the flags of thirty states representing the homes of soldiers who fought at the battle.

The president received a memento of the fighting:  a brightly polished piece of wood with a bullet embedded in it  chopped from a tree near the Burnside Bridge.

--Old Secesh

John Ross Key, Engineer CSA-- Part 1: Yep, That Key Name

One of the men appointed to the Board to detail the defense of Fort Sumter and Charleston Harbor was John Ross Key.  Well, last name of Key.  Could he be related to that other famous Francis Scott Key?

The answer is yes, he was.

From the North Point Gallery site.  Turns out John R. Key was quite the artist and mapmaker.

John Ross Key was born July 16, 1837, two months after the death of his father, and was raised until the age of five by his grandfather, none other that Francis Scott Key, who wrote, of course, "The National Anthem."  His grandfather died in 1843.

As a teenager, he was forced to work to support his widowed mother.

His talent for drawing  led to a job as a topographical artist and draftsman  with the U.S. Coast Survey.  In 1859, he was hired as mapmaker in the advance party of the Lander Expedition to chart the best overland  through hostile Indian territories of Wyoming and Nevada.

In 1861, along with several other Francis Scott Key grandsons, he threw in his lot with the Confederacy.

--Old SeceshKey

How the National Anthem Became a Part of Sports-- Part 2: Both North and South Wanted It During Civil War

During the Civil War, both the North and the South wrestled over who would claim "The Star-Spangled Banner" as their own.  The North won.

Ironically, the Confederacy's anthem, "Dixie" was written by an anti-slavery Northerner while the National Anthem was written by a slave-owning Southerner whose family supported the Confederacy long after Keys' death in 1843.

--Old Secesh

How the National Anthem Became a Part of Sports-- Part 1: First Recorded Event Was a Civil War Baseball Game

From the September 26, 2017, USA Today  "How National Anthem became essential part of sports."

The National Anthem is from the War of 1812.  The first time it was played at a sporting event was at an 1862 baseball game during the Civil War.  During World Wars I and II, it got a huge boost and these two wars established the tradition of playing it before games.

Written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, it became the de facto national anthem not long afterwards.  Congress made it the official National Anthem in 1931.

Some even believe that the National Anthem should actually be "Yankee Doodle Dandy, because it dates back to the American Revolution.

--Old Secesh