Frances Jenkins Olcott

General Scott and the Stars and Stripes

One day, as the general was sitting at his table in the office, the messenger announced that a person desired to see him a moment in order to present a gift.

A German was introduced, who said that he was commissioned by a house in New York to present General Scott with a small silk banner. It was very handsome, of the size of a regimental flag, and was made of a single piece of silk stamped with the Stars and Stripes of the proper colors.

The German said that the manufacturers who had sent the banner, wished to express thus the great respect they felt for General Scott, and their sense of his importance to the country in that perilous time.

The general was highly pleased, and, in accepting the gift, assured the donors that the flag should hang in his room wherever he went, and enshroud him when he died.

As soon as the man was gone, the general desired that the stars might be counted to see if all  the States were represented. They were all  there.

The flag was then draped between the windows over the couch where the general frequently reclined for rest during the day. It went with him in his berth when he sailed for Europe, after his retirement, and enveloped his coffin when he was interred at West Point.