A Man Who Likes Being Custer

[Diane Merkel]

Here's a nice, quick interview with Steve Alexander that appeared in the Detroit Free Press yesterday:

www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080921/NEWS05/809210448

[biggordie]

"He started the tradition of standing during the Star Spangled Banner." Does anyone know if this is remotely accurate?

Gordie

[Dark Cloud]

Custer may have "liked" Indians because, as his West Point scribblings suggest, they were doomed and soon to vanish, so might as well be polite. If Custer was a Christian, the term has no meaning. He may well have attended church with his wife or at social need.

The SSB was not the national anthem till 1931, and it was but one of several songs that filled the bill during previous years. Alexander says Custer encouraged cadets to rise while singing the 'anthem' in some tales, the SSB in others, but that only to offset the Southern singing of Dixie in the messhall.

“General Custer started the tradition of standing for the National Anthem,” said Alexander. While at West Point at the onset of the Civil War, Custer encouraged students to stand for the Star Spangled Banner in response to the southern students exuberant renditions of Dixie.

From: tiny.cc/BlsYh

The whole idea of a national anthem is for people to stand and sing it, as they do and did everywhere, so it is puzzling he should be credited with a tradition - albeit not in this anti-monarchy nation - that long existed for a song not yet, in any case, chosen. In any case, the unofficial national anthem they sang may not have been the SSB.

It suggests the terms 'national anthem' and 'Star Spangled Banner' are being used interchangeably. And, given his death in 1876, applied in error.

[biggordie]

darkcloud:

Thanks for the detailed information. I was aware [sort of] that the SSB was not adopted as the official Anthem until some years after 1876, but not of the actual year - I think there was a mention of it being more or less unofficially adopted at Fort Meade in the 80s, on another thread - but that might be my imagination.

Gordie

[Diane Merkel]

It is Sturgis, South Dakota, that claims to be the home of the National Anthem:

In the 1890s, it was commanded by Col. Calab Carlton, who wanted more ceremony on the frontier when lowering the flag at day's end. He and his wife Sadie went over a few tunes, when they suggested playing the Star Spangled Banner because (1) the circumstances the poem was written by F.S. Key in 1814, and (2) the tune it sounded good on a piano when Sadie played it. It was there where the tradition began where the soldiers would take off their hats and/or salute the lowering of the flag to the tune.

A few years later the Secretary of War was so impressed by it that he ordered all of the posts of the United States and our territories to play the Star Spangled Banner in the evening when the flag comes down.

It wasn't until 1931/1932 and during the Great Depression, President Hoover wanted to inspire the American public and develop a sense of greater patriotism. America still did not have a National Anthem, and the Star Spangled Banner was a logical choice because of the 40-year old tradition with the military.

lbha.proboards12.com/index.cgi?board=command&action=display&thread=2771

[bc]

Diane said: It is Sturgis, South Dakota, that claims to be the home of the National Anthem.

I suppose then that but for the LBH, then Garryowen could possibly have become the national anthem. I could handle that.

[Dark Cloud]

Either way, it isn't sure that Custer played a role, or that the song in the 1861 messhall was the SSB, since it's also called the then non-existent National Anthem and perhaps assumed to be the SSB, and there were other songs (Hail! Columbia!, perhaps, was one) that could have competed with Dixie.

This is the sort of detail that gives the impression of substance, and few question it, as apparently rote performance at need might make Custer a Christian. This is fluff job territory.

People have need to make Lincoln a Christian as well, although the name Jesus or Christ doesn't seem to appear in his hand at any time, and Herndon, who'd know, thought him an agnostic if not an atheist. Does Custer write a lot about Christ? At all?

It's another example of how - for current needs to increase Custer's popularity with Alexander's imagined demographic - history may be distorted some. Alexander says Custer is patriotic, and uses this anectdote as evidence, and even if true it may not be more than juvenile competitive nature, the 1861 flag pin issue. He doesn't mention Custer was perfectly willing to serve in Mexico's military for money, and perhaps elsewhere.

Whatever glurge could be assembled to prove him Christian in any practicing sense, there is certainly evidence to contest it.

But coming from a Living Historian, people will accept it without query. Custer was good because he's just like you! It's to be doubted that's valid.