Latest / OneLegUpAlex Sports / One Leg Up On Flag Day With Penguins Media Man Tom Mcmillan 6-14-24

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One Leg Up On Flag Day With Penguins Media Man Tom Mcmillan 6-14-24 · OneLegUpAlex Sports

0:02
Hey, it's Alex Garrett. And on this Flag Day, I just want
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to say this. I pray that each and every day our leaders in America
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make sure our flag is still there through their leadership and the shout out to
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those citizens who do their best to represent what that flag stands for in their
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own communities. And of course today is the US Armies, I believe,
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two hundred and forty ninth birthday, and they're hard work to protect this country
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and fight for that flag as we celebrate their birthday today should not go unnoticed.
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Thank you to all who stand with and fight for America and old glory
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this Flag Day twenty twenty four. Now here's my interview with Tom McMillan,
0:48
author of Our Flag Was Still There. Well, you know, this show
1:10
should really start with the Star Spangled banner, because yes, last week was
1:14
Flag Day. But I believe and maybe my next guest believes as well,
1:19
that in a very patriotic month of June, you know it is Flag Day,
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there are some patriotic moments of this month, but the conversation about Flag
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Day shouldn't just end on Flag Day, and I want to start there with
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my next guest, Tom McMillan, who we'll get to his book on one
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second. But Tom, you've written about the oldest star spangled banner that's still
1:38
around. Tell us what you've written. Yeah, the book, our flag
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was still there. I was just fascinated about the flag from Fort McHenry that
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our national anthem. Everybody knows that our national anthem was written about it,
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but pretty much when I looked at it, I think all people really know
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where Okay flew that when the battle Francisco Key saw I wrote a song.
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But that flag still exist two hundred and nine years later. It's at the
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Smithsonian, and I think people visited, and we just often, the way
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history is, we just know a snippet of it. I thought I was
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looking into it, that this is a fascinating story of the journey of that
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flag. When I get to the most famous flag in US history in those
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two hundred plus years, from Fort McHenry and Baltimore to the Smithsonian and all
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the ebbs and flows in between, and I got to ask you, how
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did you track this down? I mean, you weren't around in eighteen fourteen,
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but how did you track down the remainder of this beautiful story? Here?
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Yeah, Well, I went to the Fort mccinnary in Baltimore. They
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have good resources. The Smithsonian and DC was tremendous. They had about four
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hundred pages of research. I don't think many people have ever asked them for
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it. I was able to pour through that, and then I was really
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lucky and made it really personalities because I was able to track down some direct
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descendants of George Armistead, who was the commander at Fort McHenry and the guy
3:00
who thought of the flag and actually took it home after the battle, kind
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of in violation of army regulations, but he took it home and it remained
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in the possession of that family for ninety years, which is one of the
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reasons that exists today. So those family members had some tidbits and photos and
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really interesting things that made it personal for me. It was a patriotic journey
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for me. That was cool. So Port mckenry, Smithsonian National Archives and
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family descendants to and Tom McMillan, he is the author of our flag,
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was still there. The star spangled banner that survived the British in two hundred
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years and the Armistev family. Now we'll get to the armistev family a little
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more. But people may say, well, why are you doing this a
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week after Flag Day? But a story like this, it just shows that
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the American history continues even after one day year, right absolutely, and you
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know, and we're patriotic in the fourth of July, and this battle at
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Fort McHenry when Key saw the flag was actually in September September thirteenth and fourteenth,
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over the morning the fourteenth. So this is a why you know,
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spreading story, and the journey of the flag isn't just one day either.
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I mean a lot of the book is how and why it survived, the
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rather incredible story that so when you go to the Smithsonian today and you see
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it, I hope if people read it to appreciate everything that all the people
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who were involved to get it here over those those centuries that we can still
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look at it. And it's really dramatic when you see it, when you
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see it in the museum, when you say spread out, no kidding,
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there are more than eight feet of material aka the largest American flag during the
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War of eighteen twelve cut into small pieces. Now is it non American?
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Too? Would this be considered desecrating the flag by cutting into pieces. Give
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us your thoughts on well, it would have been yet part of the story.
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Again, there are different traditions in different centuries. We have to put
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ourselves back at that time. Yeah, for the listeners, the flag originally
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was thirty feet by forty two feet huge flag at the SMITHSONI. It's now
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thirty by thirty four it's eight feet shorter. It's because in the mid eighteen
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hundreds, the Armistead ladies, his wife and his daughter would do something that
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would because as you said, would be considered sacrilegious to us today, but
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was commonplace back then. They would cut off pieces of the flag and give
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them as souvenirs to battle veterans, maybe their families, bignitary's in Baltimore,
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and over several decades they cut away eight feet I was talking to one of
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the archivists at the Smithsonian and she said, yeah, you know, we
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would be aghast at that today. You could not do that today, But
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back then, in the eighteen hundreds, that's what you did. So they
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cut away pieces of the flag, and some of those have been returned to
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the SMITHSONI. They have some of those pieces available as well, but some
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of them are still in homes and little museums around the country. Tell us
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about that. Where does the flag live today? At the National Museum of
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American History, Washington, DC with the Smithsonian actually about fifty eight loose track
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of time. In the early sixties, the Smithsonian itself was just one museum
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back then. Now it's multiple, but it was just one museum and everything
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was getting cluttered, and they decided back then that they would create a museum
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just for American history, and they built it around the Star Spangled banner.
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Flag Hall was on the second floor, and it's still there on the second
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floor. They did a massive renovation about fifteen years ago, in two thousand
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and eight. It's really dramatic the way they've done it, because you have
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to take care of that textile that's two hundred and nine years old. They
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had to do a lot of work on it. But it's still there.
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So people, you know, in those museums in DC are free. People
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go in every day. And I went down there several times, and sometimes
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you know, when you're right, you get writer's block. And I live
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in Pittsburgh, but if I got that, I would drive down to DC
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and go see it and I was inspired just by looking at it and thinking,
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you know, nobody's really told this story beginning to end. I want
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to be the one who's able to tell the story. Well, it seems
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like this is the flag that the rocket drag lair bombs versing in the air
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were reflecting. And I got to ask you, where are the descendants of
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Armistead that talked to you? How did you get this behind the scenes look
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if you will, Yeah, well I did. I cold wrote them letters.
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I did some research. You can find a lot of things on ancestry
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dot com, and I just cold wrote them letters, explained to them who
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I was and what I was doing. And they were extremely gracious. Some
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folks in Philadelphia and some folks in Florida. They were excited that someone was
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talking about it, and they had me to their homes and they provided They
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were very very grace, provided some photos for the book, provided some documents.
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Actually, because of this, Alex, one of the things I'm proudsed
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of a little side view here, is because of the research, I was
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able to put some of them in touch with the people at the Smithsonian and
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they have donated several of George Armistead's items now to the Smithsonian that they were
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in their home had he had in his home. I saw them in Philadelphia.
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They had his original US Army commissions that were signed by John Adams,
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Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. They were in their home and they had
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an eighteen sixteen painting of him and those things. Now, the Smithsonian was
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very excited, and the Armistic has decided, you know, we have these
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in our home. It's nice, but if we give it to the Smithsonian,
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we know it'll be preserved for all times. So the Smithsonian authenticated those
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pieces and they have now been donated down there. So it's kind of a
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cool little thing for me as an author. It wasn't the purpose of the
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book, but because of that I was able to put those two together,
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and those items are not will now be available to the American public. I
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gotta ask you this because you know, we just kind of went out the
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gate here about the flag. But you are Tom McMillan, and for those
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who are just listening to the show for the first time, listening to you
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for the first time, give us some insight into who Tom McMillan is.
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You are a historian and an author. Yes, I actually just retired from
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my profession, which was in sports media and communications. Believe they or not.
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I was a writer and a broadcaster, and then I worked as VP
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of Communications for the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL for twenty five years. But
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history was always my passion, and my wife and I volunteer at historic sites.
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And as I got on in years, I thought I can write a
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little bit. I'll try to write some books. And this is actually my
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fourth book. I wrote one on Flight ninety three, the September eleventh flight
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that crashed. I live in Pittsburgh, so best about one hundred miles from
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where I live. In two on the Battle of Gettysburg. I'm a total
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Civil War nerd. But this one there's an Armistead family member who's famous at
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Gettysburg, who was involved in Pickett's charge. And by researching that book is
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when I really stumbled across some of this information and I thought, this is
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the kind of story that I want to do. So the sports media and
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communications was my profession, but history and history writing is my hobby and will
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continue to be so, all right, loll sign note Because my dad raised
9:52
me in sports and we were at let me use what we thought was his
9:56
last game against the Rangers back at the Igloo years ago or so. So
10:01
there's a lot of history there, how about that. Yes, So when
10:05
you know about Penguin's history, I got to ask you. I mean,
10:07
twenty five years you saw them win the Cup with Crosby and we'll see they've
10:11
kind of waned a little bit here. But are they going to be a
10:13
force this season? Yeah? Well it's you know, there's an ebb and
10:16
flow of sports. They have have beaten back the curve because they made the
10:20
playoffs for sixteen straight years. This past year was the first year they missed
10:24
in seventeen years. That's almost impossible to do. You can't in the salary
10:30
cap area you were, It's really hard to do that. So just that
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sustaining excellence for that long, I mean, you can't stay on top forever.
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But Crosby and Malkin and Tang are still here and there's a new GM,
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so they're gonna they're gonna try to retool and take another run. But
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it has really been a golden era and I was very privileged to have a
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front row view with those Limoux teams which I covered for the Pittsburgh Postnett and
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then the Crosby teams, which I where I was involved as an executive.
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To be part of those Stanley Cups one of some of the great memories of
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my life. Obviously, it's amazing that I brought you on talking about the
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American flag, and here we are talking about the Penguins, but I've kind
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of had a bit of a history with them as well. And of course
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McCutcheon now and Pittsburgh the Pirates have come along now this year as well.
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We'll ob to see what happens there. Yeah, it's it's a good sports
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town. And it was an easy if you love sports, which I did,
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and loved writing, which I did, it was easy to get motivated
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to get into that kind of career. But Alex I, when they would
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say ask you this history stuff, I would say, for most people,
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sports is their escape from their real job, their escape from their life.
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And I say, when you work in sports, you need an escape permit.
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And his So history was my sports. That's what I did in my
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downtime, and it was a love of history for many many years before I
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started writing that that led to this and now in retirement, this is really
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what I'm doing, and to tell this story, you know, be able
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to tell this patriotic story. I try to, you know, touch stories
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that maybe haven't been told before, and this was one that really hadn't been
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in And I think you appreciate to as a history lover. At least half
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the fun is the research and learning and then you have to sit down and
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write. But I learned so much myself writing this book, and I was
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I'm a pretty good student of history, and I was astounded how little I
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knew about this flag story. So I thought, yeah, obviously, not
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every day you get to go into an army base and a fort. So
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is Fort McHenry the only base you've been to? Oh? No, I
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mean it's Fort mcchinery is essentially a national park. It's part of the National
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Park Service. So I had visited there plenty of times before. Uh,
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just through my life, whenever you're in Baltimore, I always went to Fort
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McHenry, not never thinking I was going to write a book. So it's
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a it's a special place because the walls of the fort are still there.
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I mean you can stand there and look out on the water in Baltimore Harbor
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and almost you can see where key ship was and imagine what was happening that
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day, and the big flag flag flies over the fort. So it's,
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uh, you know, it's a former military base, but now it's you
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know, they call it a National Historic Site, but it's basically run by
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the National Park Service free to the public. There's no charge to go to
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Fort mc County as a historic site, though I know they can't really change
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much. I mean I don't ever get into the base or now. But
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are there relics from the base that you can see at the park. Well,
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the outer walls of the fort are still there now selling the bad that
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have been prepared over the years. Again, the fourth continued in existence after
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the War of eighteen twelve. It was pretty much a Union prison. During
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the Civil War, the Federal Army used it and was used into the eighteen
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hundreds. But yeah, the hour structure of the fort is still there,
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and they have the guns placed or replica guns obviously placed where those guns used
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to be. So it's set up. It's set up the way it looked
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during the battle in September of eighteen fourteen that Key would have seen from the
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water, So you really get it's kind of an eerie feeling when you go
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there. They've done a great job of preserving They know where the footprint is
13:56
of the fort, and so the visitor center is off a little bit over
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and they always have a flag raising ceremony every day. The flag there,
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the idea of the flag is really the focus of what they do with the
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programming. All right, well, I got to ask you this. Do
14:13
you know how they folded this huge American flag at the end of the day
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even though there was no battle, because obviously that's a big part of the
14:20
military. Is the folding of the flag, that taking it down at the
14:24
end of the day type of ceremony it is. I'm not sure. I'll
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tell you. I don't know the details about that. From the early eighteen
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hundreds, my guess is they weren't as precise as they are now. I
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think those I think those traditions and regulations developed over time. Remember the War
14:41
of eighteen twelve was only was only thirty six years after the declaration of independence.
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I mean, we were still a really young country and here we are
14:52
at war with England again. So I think, you know, the country
14:54
was just in its embryonic stages. Both governmentally and traditional wise. Don't really
15:00
sure, but I don't think it was as precise back then as it is
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now. Certainly now they are very precise regulations of of what you would do
15:07
with the flag. So this flag, it's part of this two hundred and
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nine year old flag that he saw, I mean, part of it was
15:15
the armist Dead Ladies and in his descendant did protect it. But there were
15:20
times, there were months when it was just rolled up and put us a
15:22
canvas sack. They didn't have the technology or the knowledge of flag preservation that
15:28
we did today, so they probably did some things and ended up causing some
15:33
damage, but they wouldn't have known that they didn't have that information. They
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did the best they could, and they certainly did well enough that the flag
15:39
survived. And then it's had two major rehab projects, one of the early
15:43
nineteen hundreds and one of the early two thousands, and now they're convinced that
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it's going to exist for many, many decades, if not centuries, into
15:52
the future. All Right, I got to ask you this, Tom,
15:54
because obviously you say, of documents and letters, do we get to see
16:00
the words of Georgia Armistead and the plans of him unfolding in this book.
16:04
Thank you. Oh absolutely, I get into his It was a distinguished military
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family. Armisteads had been in some sort of the military since the year sixteen
16:14
eighty back in Virginia. He and three of his brothers were professional US Army
16:18
officers. So yes, he took over the fort in eighteen thirteen, a
16:22
year before the battle. That's when he ordered the flag. So we do
16:26
the build up. The war is going on, but it hasn't come down
16:27
to Baltimore. So yes, that whole summer they know the British are coming,
16:30
they don't know exactly when, really, And then I have I was
16:34
able to obtain his post battle report that he wrote maybe ten days after the
16:40
battle, where he describes what happens, and I quote that extensively. Sometimes
16:45
you don't want to use long quotes in your books, you want to write
16:48
around it. But I thought that stuff was so important that I wanted to
16:52
let his words tell that story rather than mine. So those things, you
16:56
know, we're available. It's a little easier to do research now with the
16:59
internet. You can go online, but not a lot of people have seen
17:02
them. And and so I think some of the information even though it's two
17:04
hundred years old, is really going to be new to a lot of a
17:07
lot of readers who again just know kind of the really top line of this
17:11
story at Fort mcchennery with Francis Scott Key, Well, why I love this
17:15
month because not only a flag day, but I believe it's the birthday of
17:18
the army. I mean, there's a lot going on as far as patriotic
17:22
and I feel like you you probably touch on that as well. Yeah,
17:26
the US Army was the Continental Congress formed the army in June of seventeen seventy
17:32
five. That's when they appointed Washington in the first General. So it all
17:36
it all ties in. There's there's there's a lot that happened when you look
17:41
at this period of June and going to the first week of July with the
17:44
July in the Battle of Gettysburg the first week of July. There's really a
17:47
lot of American history that has happened in this three or four or five week
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period. Having said that, you can probably take any five week period and
17:53
then you know, we have a lot of history in our country, but
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this is this is a I think a patriotic time and it was a nice
18:00
time to focus on the flat you are a historian. Tell us about the
18:04
other books you've written as well, just to get people up to speed on
18:07
the work of Tom McMillon. I worked the first book, but I took
18:12
a shot to try to do this could be successful. It was on Flight
18:15
ninety three, the September eleventh flight where the passengers and crew fought back at
18:22
drashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, which and my interest was we were all affected
18:26
by nine to eleven, those of us alive at the time, but it
18:29
was very I mean, it was only one hundred miles from Pittsburgh, so
18:30
I would go out there and look at the site. And about ten years
18:34
later, I'd realized, you know, there's been a lot written about what
18:37
happened in New York and d C. But not much really written about Shanksville.
18:41
And so I really wanted to dig into that flight, and I talked
18:44
to some family members and it was quite an emotional journey to write that book,
18:48
and that was my first one. It's still for sale and they have
18:52
it at the Flight ninety three National Memorial. And then I ended up writing
18:55
two books on the Battle of Gettysburg. Just always I've been studying Gettysburg for
19:00
thirty years, went there as a kid. One was on five. Actually,
19:04
there were five young men who grew up in Gettysburg and ended up fighting
19:08
for the Confederate Army in the Battle of Gettysburg. They were foreign invangers in
19:14
their hometown, and nobody had written that. So I called it the title,
19:17
that is Gettysburg Rebels. And then I wrote another Gettyburg Armistead and Hancock.
19:22
There's Armistead again. There was a Confederate general and a Union general,
19:26
Lewis Armistead and Winfield Scott Hancock, very good friends before the war. Not
19:30
only did they face each other in the war, they faced each other and
19:33
pickets charge at Gettysburg. And just writing I thought that then encapsulized the whole
19:37
history of the Civil War. You have these two guys who served together in
19:41
the army as friends in the US Army, it bought together in the Mexican
19:45
War, and here they are in the most famous attack of the Civil War,
19:48
the Battle of Gettysburg, facing each other, and they both were wounded
19:51
by the others troops. So I do try to dig into some of these
19:56
stories that in my old newspaper days would have been feature stories and on those
20:00
uh so hopefully people who aren't even really into the total like deep history the
20:06
Battle of Gettysburg or the War of eighteen twelve, this is a story that
20:10
maybe you can enjoy. All Right. I got to ask you this because
20:11
again, I'm a sports guy. So you went from the ice rink,
20:15
the sport, you know, the ring, the skiing rink to maybe Gettysburg
20:18
reenactment. Is that kind of the vibe I'm getting from you. I would
20:22
they when and whenever the Penguin season ended, whether that was with a loss
20:26
or a Stanley Cup. I the next weekend, I went to Gettysburg.
20:32
That was That was how I I calmed down from the season. So yeah,
20:37
I always uh it's it's only about three and a half hours from where
20:40
I live, so it's it's an easy trip. It's always been a big
20:44
part of my life. And that's why it's kind of interesting at the end
20:45
now that I've figured out writing books, you know, to be able to
20:48
write about and enjoy it that way, to do that research in it,
20:52
and it actually there's a there's a productivity to it, and I want to
20:56
keep going. But this book on the floor, I just came out.
21:00
So I'm focused on this for a while and doing some interviews like this and
21:03
podcasts and book talks and and it's it's a fun part of it getting out
21:10
and meeting people and talk to them about this story. Again that a lot
21:12
of them tell me I've already heard that they didn't know a lot about so
21:17
that it's it's rewarding to know that you're providing some information that maybe people who
21:21
are interested in history didn't know before. All Right, That leads me to
21:25
my next question. I love how you set that up because I got to
21:26
ask, and I've never really asked a historian this, but what's it mean
21:30
to you to preserve the American history through your writing? Oh, it's it's
21:36
it's I've had a great professional career, but this is the most rewarding part
21:40
of my life. You leave a little bit of yourself and I've always loved
21:45
American history so much, And now you're able to make You're able to make
21:49
It's a very small contribution, but you're able to make a contribution and years
21:55
from now, people you know, I always said sometimes in the modern context
21:59
of you don't do the research now, we might not be able to find
22:03
those things in fifty years. So you're also thinking, maybe no one would
22:07
ever have looked at this star stangled banner story. Maybe no one would have
22:10
looked at the Armistead family. I just kind of stumbled into it, and
22:14
it is very rewarding. You don't it's a hobby for me. You don't
22:17
do it. You might make a little bit of money, that's not your
22:19
motivation. You do it because you love it and you can interact with people
22:23
and see that they react to it. That's the best part of this.
22:26
It's having people read it and learn and getting that feedback that keeps you going.
22:33
All right, Then I got to ask you this, because obviously you've
22:36
now covered Baltimore, You've covered Gettysburg. What about the history of the Steel
22:40
City? Will you ever cover your hometown? I don't know. People have
22:45
asked me that Pittsburgh. Who knows? I'm wide open. One thing I
22:51
can't tell you, Alex, though. There are always people, especially friends
22:53
and family members, you know, when they know you write books, say
22:56
why do you write about this? Why don't you write about that? There
23:00
have been a couple of ideas that I had that I started and I just
23:03
didn't feel it even though it was interested in the topic. You really,
23:07
it's a lot of work. It's fun, it's a hobby. I enjoy
23:10
it, but it is a lot of work. It's a lot of time,
23:12
and you have to love the story. And you kind of know that
23:15
as soon as you're a little bit in, maybe a couple of chapters.
23:18
And I've started a couple of books a couple of chapters. It's just field,
23:22
right, So I think that's part of it. You have to love
23:26
it, so you never know. The next book is never planned. I've
23:30
always allowed myself to stumble onto these these other books, so we'll see what
23:34
happens. There's still only a lot of history here in Pittsburgh, but there
23:37
might just be something of of traveling for research that intrigues me too. So
23:42
I'm I'm an open canvas on it. Well, have you ever come to
23:45
New York Let us know. We'd love to talk with you more. One
23:48
last thing, favorite rendition of the national anthem that I could play to end
23:52
the segment today. You know, I just there are so many of them,
23:56
so there have been so many great ones that it's forty events. You
23:59
know, the Whitney Houston people talks about that talk about it. I just
24:03
I like the straight, dramatic, patriotical I really do. People have had
24:08
great versions of it, but just it's the it's the the song. When
24:12
I hear the music and I think about the flag, that's what inspires me
24:15
so well. I know there are some famous ones. I just like the
24:19
you know, the basic, straightforward version of the anthem, the one I
24:23
the one that I grew to NOA love as a kid. So I don't
24:27
know if that's a that's a very exciting answer, but I just it makes
24:32
me. It makes me stand at attention whenever I hear Tom McMillan, Thanks
24:37
so much, and we'll definitely have you back on the Alex Garrett Podcast Network