Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Dramatic Story, of Old Glory Flag stands for one hundred millions of people com posed Of many races, classes, creeds and parties. The appeal must be addressed to the imagination of men, especially of the youth of the land. This explains the undying popularity and also the special utility of our national song: The Star Spangled Banner. It is connected with a thrilling incident when, in one of the darkest hours of the Republic, when its fortunes were at their lowest ebb since the days of Valley Forge, a little band of Americans held out against a superior power. The poet caught the spirit of the occasion and found his inspiration in the fact that, over the smoke Of battle, the Flag was still there. Mr. Abbott has, therefore, done a public service in narrating in an interesting way the history of the Amer ican Flag, and it is to be hoped, not merely because it is a readable book, but because it should be a potent weapon for a quickened patriotism, that the book will have a wide circulation and that, through its interesting pages, thousands of Americans may better know their country and its Flag. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.