Gettysburg students come from all walks of life, political leanings, religions, races, cultures, and tastes. This makes for a diverse and exciting campus culture where every experience is unique. However, one thing that all of them will run into over their college career is the Confederate battle flag.
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Whether it is flying from the back of a local’s truck, hung on their roommate’s wall, or flying proudly over a camp of reenactors, the flag is hard to miss. Its bright blue cross marks and red paneling have come to symbolize controversy since the end of the American Civil War. It seems to be everywhere in Gettysburg: almost every store has some kind of Confederacy themed product (even a bikini), locals put them on their houses, and many can be found on monuments in the military park.
This is with good reason. Gettysburg was the center of a large, three day battle between the Union and Confederacy that is believed by many to be one of the most impactful battles of the Civil War. It is also one of the most notable and famous of the battles, most notably because of the cemetery and President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. People flock to the town every year to celebrate the beginning and end of the battle in full historical dress with fireworks and faux battles. It doesn’t help that the Fourth of July immediately follows the anniversary, making it the perfect patriotic cocktail that any red-blooded American could be proud to attend.
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However, on such national events, the message of unity and celebration of the American spirit are clouded by those who hide behind the mask of family history to try and divide us more than we already are. Claims are made that they are more patriotic than others and that they can insult anyone who disagrees. Flags are flown from the backs of pickup trucks and draped over shoulders as people walk through the historic downtown. The initial reaction for many is visceral and immediate: that’s the kind of person you stay away from. On the other side, many see the flag-fliers as proud Americans celebrating their genealogy and utilizing their first amendment rights.
This disagreement can be summed up by the words ‘Heritage v. Hate.’ On the side of heritage is a long family line and connection to the Confederacy against those that believe the flag symbolizes everything morally wrong about the Confederacy, including the promotion/preservation of slavery and overall white supremacy in the modern era. Hate has the continued understanding that flying the Confederate flag is a sign of backwards thinking and political right leanings that verge into fascism.
Historically speaking, what we associate as the Confederate flag is only the battle flag, flown when going to war. The national flag for the Confederacy is very different from the other symbol and came in three forms over the course of the war: the ‘Stars and Bars’, the ‘Stainless Banner’, and the ‘Blood-stained Banner’. The later two, adopted in in 1863 and 1865 respectively, feature small sections with the battle flag printed. The first one was changed because it resembled the Union flag too much, caused confusion on the battlefield, and received criticism for resembling the Union’s, which they had been trying to leave. The flag we mainly associate with the controversy was only utilized on the battlefield and was a call to arms. Pictured below is the ‘Blood-stained Banner.’
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At Gettysburg specifically, we have a very large reenacting community and many of these people have created personas that support the Confederacy. Which is all well and good until they start making excuses for it and walk into the dangerous territory of falsification. Claiming that the only reason for secession was because of money, not because they wanted to keep their slaves as abolitionists made progress in Congress; putting Confederate stickers on laptops, wearing patches on their jackets, and speaking vocally about how uninformed others are about the ‘ulterior’ motives behind the deadliest conflict in our national history. Excusing racism, violence, and antiquated ideals is not doing history justice.
Many of these people call themselves history majors and are in the Civil War Era Studies track, leaving people such as this writer confused as to how they can overlook these crucial historical facts in their study of the conflict. This kind of overlooking comes off as ignorant and backwards, and casts a pall over the whole department. Overlooking central issues in conflicts of this size is a dangerous mistake to make and only promotes ignorance in the future. If you were to go read the declarations of the causes of secession, you would see that racial inequality and progressive policies in the North and Washington D.C. were the biggest reasons.
Take this excerpt from Mississippi’s declaration of causes of secession:
“It [The Union] has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.
It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.
It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.
It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.
It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.
It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.
It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.
It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.” (Source: Civil War Trust)
They flat out said that they were seceding because of slavery and the radical notion that slaves are people too. The other causes read the same way and there is a certain feel of a conspiracy to them. They seem to think the whole world is against them and that the other side is the more problematic side because they (white slave-owners) are being ‘forced’ to fall in line with the radical North. It would be comical if not for what followed and the legacy such thinking has left behind. The continued glorification of the American Civil War and the recent surge in white nationalism in our nation is making the United State a powder keg.
The Confederate battle flag has been used in association with hate crimes on all too many occasions, including the conflict in February that ended with the accused parties being sentenced to fifteen and twenty years of jail time. Threatening to kill children as part of your ‘heritage’ is a disgraceful thing to do and should never be supported. Heritage is a celebration of all that you are and those who have come before you and their good deeds and cultural life. It isn’t using the n-word and flying a flag that has been used to intimidate and harm others who came before your classmates, neighbors, and friends. It isn’t saying that the South should have won; saying that is announcing that you support the continuation of slavery, white supremacy, and all things associated with it. No, claiming you have black friends doesn’t make this any better; if anything, this makes it worse because if you do, you should know better than to wave the thing around. As stated before, the flag itself is a call to arms and is interpreted as a call to arms against the values of human rights and empathy.
Now, I do also want to make the point that many people don’t know about this level of historical context and background that would allow them to understand more in-depth reasons for why the flag is not a good thing to be waving around. My own father wore all kinds of Confederate flag gear up until he started to learn about what the flag stood for and what it has come to symbolize. And he’s not alone. All across the United States, history classes do not fully educate about the Civil War and what the symbols used within it have been used for and now stand for. Ignorance cannot be helped on many levels, and we must be compassionate to those who fall into this category simply because they don’t know any better. The path forward is to educate and hopefully make a difference with those who genuinely don’t know what they are showing off.
The point I’m trying to make is this: within certain historical and academic contexts, the Confederate battle flag can be a good thing. As much as we may wish that it wasn’t, the American Civil War is an integral part of American history and the Confederacy was one side of it. What they did during the Civil War has made the United States what it is today and without an understanding of history, we cannot move forward and prevent such a thing from happening again. It should be used to teach and explain the accurate, unembellished, unmodified history of the conflict.
However, that does not change the fact that this flag has come to symbolize hate, racism, and division and the people who advocate for these things. It has no place on the top of a legislative building, on a truck bumper, or decorating a dorm room.
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Heritage ≠ Hate
BUT
Hate ≥ Heritage
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The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not represent the views of Her Campus at Gettysburg College or Her Campus Media, LLC