On March 4, 1861, Miss Letitia Christian Tyler was escorted
to the top of the capitol building in Montgomery, Alabama. She was nineteen
years old. Her grandfather was John Tyler, former president of the United
States. Her father would serve as Regis
ter of the Confederate Treasury. Letitia
was actually born in the White House while her grandfather was president and
her father was serving as his private secretary. She was at the Alabama capitol
building to raise the first Confederate flag.
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| Jefferson Davis in Montgomery |
The delegates meeting
in Montgomery recognized quite early that the new nation needed a new flag. And
they wanted one by the inauguration of the new provisional president, Jefferson
Davis. On February 9, the delegates appointed a committee to select a flag.
Some felt that the flag should be as much like the Stars and Stripes as
possible. Walter Brooke, from Mississippi, introduced a resolution to adopt such
a flag. There was so much opposition to the proposal that it was withdrawn. On
March 4, the committee made its recommendations for the new flag. The committee
reported that “A new flag should be simple, readily made, and, above all,
capable of being made in bunting. It should be different from the flag of any other
country, place, or people.” The new flag “shall consist of a red field with a
white space extending horizontally through the center, and equal in width to
one-third the width of the flag. The red space above and below to be of the
same width as the white. The union blue extending down through the white space
and stopping at the lower red space. In the center of the union a circle of
white stars corresponding in number with the States in the Confederacy.”[1]
The report was adopted and the manufacture of the first flag turned over to the
“Sewing Establishment of the Messrs. Cowles, Market street,” in Montgomery.[2]
Writing many years after
the war, and confessing that “many of the details of the event” had faded from
her memory, Letitia Tyler recalled “ascending the stairs that led to the dome
of the building and that I was escorted by Hon. Hon. Alex B. Clitherall, one of
the Confederate officials. Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Taylor and several other persons
accompanied us to the top of the Capitol. Below us were vast throngs of people,
who were watching and waiting for the signal to unfurl the flag of the new
nation. On reaching the base of the dome I found the flag ready, and the cord
was handed to me. Then I began to pull it, and up climbed the flag to the top
of the pole and floated out boldly on the stiff March wind. The hundreds of
people below us sent up a mighty shout. Cannon roared out a salute, and my
heart beat with wild joy and excitement.”[3]
Letitia C. Tyler
never married. Her parents were, in fact, living in Pennsylvania at the time,
and she was visiting with friends who lived near Montgomery when she was asked,
by Jefferson Davis, to raise the new national flag. It is assumed that she
moved to Richmond after her family arrived from Pennsylvania. After the war,
the family moved to Montgomery where Robert edited the Montgomery Advertiser.
Letitia C. Tyler died in Montgomery on July 22, 1924, and is buried in Oakwood
Cemetery.
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