Washington's Birthday Observed
While the gun salute when passing Mount Vernon was discontinued some time before specific honors to Washington's tomb were prescribed, the memory of our first president is honored in accordance with Navy regulations by a 21-gun salute fired at noon on each twenty-second day of February by all vessels and naval stations equipped with saluting batteries. This regulation has come down intact from 1818 except for one change in 1865 of the number of guns required since 1818 (it was a 17-gun salute then). The Regulations for the Navy of the Confederate States called for similar honors on Washington's birthday:
"Salutes on the 22nd of February, &c. On the anniversary of the declaration of independence of the Confederate States, and on the twenty-second day of February, the anniversary of the birth of Washington, a salute of twenty-one guns shall be fired at meridian from vessels in commission and navy yards." (Art. 25)
There is an instance on record when Union warships lying off the Confederate-held fort at Pensacola, Florida, joined with the fort at the firing of a salute. During the Civil War, Mount Vernon was by spontaneous consent of those on both sides of the great contest neutral ground. Soldiers were requested to leave their arms outside the gates, which they did, and men in blue and grey met fraternally before the tomb of the Father of their divided country.
greyhttp://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq51-1.htm
My comments:
I took this picture last year (2007) on my first trip to Mt. Vernon.
