Old Glory

The name Old Glory belonged first to one particular flag. It was big, about 17 by 10 feet, sewn for a young Salem, Massachusetts sea captain named William Driver by his mother and a group of local women. He is said to have christened it Old Glory as it went up the mast.

In 1837 he settled in Nashville, and on holidays he strung the flag on a rope from his attic window across the street. When Tennessee left the Union, secessionists threatened to seize it. Driver had it sewn inside a coverlet, and it stayed hidden until February 1862, when Union troops entered the city and he brought it out to fly over the State Capitol.

That flag is now in the Smithsonian. The nickname spread to every flag in the country.

This painting gives the name its weather. The flag runs from a dark pole at the left edge out to the right, folded into thick ridges of crimson and ivory laid on with a knife. The union is deep navy scattered with small silver stars. Toward the fly the stripes come apart into ragged flicks, against a sky of slate-gray strokes. Thin lines of thrown gold and cobalt cut across the surface like rain caught in a light.