Why Lincoln missed flag-raising
Raising the American flag is a common activity for presidents, including Abraham Lincoln. But he had to skip one such occasion, even though he had promised to be there.
It happened less than a year after his inauguration in March 1861. Six months later, after the first battles of the War Between the States had been fought, the Great Emancipator received an invitation to view the hoisting of Old Glory at a newly constructed fort.
The invitation came from “Fighting” Joe Hooker, a West Pointer who despised his nickname and rose to become a brigadier general. In 1861, his most famous battles lay in the future: at Williamsburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.
As summer turned to fall that year, he sent a letter to Lincoln, addressed “To His Excellency The President of the United States.” Hooker informed the president that “the Fort which bears His name is completed in all of its essentials.” Hooker was referring to Fort Lincoln near Bladensburg, Maryland.
The general’s missive continued with the hope that Lincoln “will honor us with His presence on the occasion of raising the flag which is to float from [the fort’s] crest.” Hooker added that Abe’s participation “will be esteemed as a mark of especial kindness and consideration by myself and command. If the President should think favorably of this requist [sic] I beg that He will appoint the day for the ceremony.”
If the honor itself didn’t win over the chief executive, surely the capital H’s did, a distinction usually reserved only for pronouns referring to the Deity.
Lincoln responded with his assent. “If agreeable to Genl. Hooker,” he wrote, “let the time be 4 o’clock, P.M. Tuesday, October 22, 1861.”
But the president never made the event, and the American flag had to be lifted without him. The reason was explained a few days later by The New York Times.
“It was intended,” the newspaper said, that Hooker’s “whole division should have participated in the inauguration of Fort Lincoln, near Bladensburgh [sic], but the recent movement prevented” it from occurring.
“The recent movement” referred to Confederate troops appearing the area of the fort. That action rendered it a hostile location for President Lincoln to be and drew Union troops out of their newborn fort.
In 1865, after Lincoln’s assassination, Hooker led the funeral procession as it passed through Springfield, Illinois, on its way to the 16th president’s final resting place.