Virginia: Civil War Battle Flag over I-95 Kindles Debate
No matter who you think ought to have won the Civil War, you’ll have someone to root for on Saturday as the Johnny Rebs and Blue Coats unfurl their separate gigantic battle flags over Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy.
News that a Confederate history group is planning to unfurl a car dealership-size Battle Flag over I-95 near Richmond sparked a counter-flag movement that grew to the point where a rival group, more sympathetic to the federal idea, plans a countercharge, by flying a massive US flag near downtown.
A Confederate flag waves in a trailer park in Spring City, Pa. On Saturday, competing groups will display Confederate and US flags in Richmond, Virginia.
Steven M. Falk/Philadelphia Daily News/AP
Though the tensions between the North and South today tend to flare up mostly on newspaper op-ed pages and the Internet, the high emotions around the flag symbolism continues to tear at the US zeitgeist, a reminder that, aside from the resolve of slavery, fundamental differences of opinion about the ship of state linger among honest Americans.
While history suggests that the fighting will mostly be verbal and symbolic, residents and police in Chester, where the Confederate group, Virginia Flaggers, will hoist its flag next to I-95, say they are concerned about violence, with local resident Frankie Nichols telling a local NBC affiliate, “You never know what people will do when they get excited.”
he US is 148 years removed from the end of the bloody, earthshaking grappling match between North and South, between Abe and Jefferson, between gray and blue, between brother and brother. But since the NAACP began a march across the South in the late 1990s to eradicate confederate symbols from state-owned lands – including the St. Andrew’s cross flag that flew over a majority of former Confederate statehouses – the debate has touched deep nerves on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line.
The issue flared up in earnest in 2000, during the presidential election, when the NAACP worked to have South Carolina remove the Confederate flag from atop the State House. (It was eventually moved to another part of the capitol grounds.)
“Waving a flag in someone’s face is almost like trying to pick a fight,” Pennsylvania resident Jim Matusko told Philadelphia Daily News reporter William Bender in a story published Saturday. “I don’t like the guy in the White House, either, but the South isn’t going to rise again.”
But the controversy continues, perhaps because the South never quite fell. And it may even be ascendant as the Confederate battle flag enjoys what appears to be a resurgence in popularity amid widespread discontent with Washington.
In April, an Alamogordo, New Mexico, a man was arrested for flying a Confederate flag too close to the Stars and Stripes. Police cited a 1963 law that makes it illegal to insult the US flag.
In 2011, a black University of South Carolina student flew a battle flag from his dorm window as a comment on the lack of finesse in the debate. The university told him to take it down after getting complaints, but then relented and said he could put it back in his window – that even on college campuses, free speech is allowed even if it might offend someone.
Also in January, a request made by the state of Virginia to borrow a historic Confederate flag seized by Union troops from Minnesota during the war was rebuffed by Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, who suggested returning the flag, even for a spell, would be “sacrilege.”
Mr. Bender, the Philly reporter, suggested in his piece that Confederate flag regalia is becoming more popular outside of the South for myriad reasons ranging from the spread of country music, dissatisfaction with the guy in the White House, and sympathy for the rebel mindset.
The flag, he writes, is “a complicated and incendiary symbol of rebellion, slavery, Southern pride, and white supremacy.”
The NAACP, and many black Americans, have contended that the Southern symbols are painful reminders not just of slavery, but of Jim Crow laws and practices, when Southern leaders refused to relent to court-ordered desegregation, insisting on a system that was separate and unequal.
Today, however, the flags tend to be less symbolic of the resistance by white supremacists and more an embattled memory of the Lost Cause, which included, beyond slavery, social traditions, deregulated markets, and a sense of heroism.
Indeed, the Virginia Flaggers have denounced the use of the battle flag by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists.
“If somebody broke into your house and robbed you, and they were wearing New York Giantsattire, you wouldn’t assume that there was something evil in the Giants association,” Gene Hogan, chief of heritage operations for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told the Daily News. “You would say, ‘No, that was an evil person that co-opted those garments.’ Same way with the battle flag.”
Indeed, most Confederate flag-wavers today aren’t pining for the slavery days, but rooting for sides in what Peter Carmichael, director of the Civil War Institute in Gettysburg, called in an Associated Press story a “war between the big government and the small governments.”
In Richmond, the pro-Stars and Stripes group United RVA gathered 24,000 signatures in support of their effort to fly the Union flag in protest of the big St. Andrew’s Cross.
“There’s only one flag that unites and represents all of us in RVA and that’s the American flag,” Brian Cannon, one of the United RVA organizers, told reporters.
-Patrik Jonsson, The Christian Science Monitor
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Georgia: Chickamauga Re-Enactment a Success
After the Battle of Chickamauga, the second-bloodiest battle of the Civil War, about half a dozen soldiers lingered. They stayed behind to scrub from the field the remnants of war.
There, at Mountain Cove Farms in rural Walker County, Ga., the men discovered the typical supplies left in a soldier’s camp. They found bacon, beans and firewood. But the soldiers also found other, unexpected items.
Confederate soldiers fire a cannon during the Battle of Chickamauga re-enactment at Mountain Cove Farms on Sept. 21, 2013.
In the fields next to where uniformed men rode horses and fired cannons the day before, those who stayed behind scooped trash from picnic sites.
They also discovered leftovers from vendors who came to the battle representing places like the Georgia Winery and Chick-Fil-A.
“We’re back to the modern times,” event coordinator John Culpepper said from the field Monday, 150 years after the Battle of Chickamauga and one morning after a two-day reenactment of the event.
For years, Culpepper helped plan this reenactment. He and others involved said Monday they were pleased with how the event unfolded. They loved the backdrop of the North Georgia mountains, and they loved the participants’ dedication to authenticity, the fleeting feeling that they were all, in fact, stepping two centuries back in time.
But others weren’t so pleased. A storm brought about 2 inches of rain Saturday, and the rain brought mud, and the mud brought panic. Event organizers planned for spectators to park at the entrance of Mountain Cove Farms, but the grass lot was ruined, and any cars that drove there would have gotten stuck.
Instead, organizers steered traffic to dry hills, slowing the stream of cars entering the farm. Some said this ruined their day.
Deb Guffey, of Mentone, Ala., wrote on Facebook that she waited in traffic for two hours. When she finally arrived, members of the Georgia State Patrol told her she could only stay 45 minutes before they would start directing spectators to leave.
Larry Pujol, of Canton, Ga., wrote that he ran into problems earlier than that. He said the directions he found on the event’s website took him to the wrong address. And once he found the right location — and waited long enough to reach a parking lot — the battle was over.
Organizers do not yet know how many people came to the reenactments Saturday and Sunday, but they suspect the first day’s storm affected the overall attendance. Mark Way, the event operations manager with the Blue Gray Alliance that ran this reenactment, said he won’t know the final figures until he can crunch numbers given to him from volunteers who worked the ticket gate, and until he can look at how many reenactors signed into the event’s registration book.
On Monday, though, he estimated that 6,000 reenactors attended the battle and about 15,000 other people came to watch. This event drew more spectators than the one that the Blue Gray Alliance organized at Gettysburg in June. That reenactment drew a crowd of about 5,000 people, in part because it competed with another Gettysburg reenactment that unfolded the week after.
Clear skies or cloudy, the Battle of Chickamauga still brought plenty of people — and business — to the area. Tommy Sprayberry, who runs an embroidery company in LaFayette called Pigeon Creek, printed event T-shirts.
He was happy with the amount of shirts he sold. He doesn’t know the actual numbers yet, but he thinks he sold more shirts this weekend than he did at the Gettysburg event in June, when about 1,500 people bought clothes from him.
Visitors also packed Walker County hotels and restaurants.
Amanda Laveck, a manager of the General Bragg Inn and Suites, said all 31 of her rooms were full from Sept. 17 through Sunday night. On a typical weekday this summer, she said, visitors occupied about 15 rooms, and on weekends that number jumped to about 22.
For the first time in the hotel’s history, horses stood tied up in the parking lot. And inside, reenactors filled the halls, the men in uniform, the women with their hair up.
“Just old fashioned, awesome, cool-looking stuff,” Laveck said.
But she also said several travelers called asking for help. They were on their way to the event, and they wanted to know where spectators could park. Others called telling her that the event website’s directions misled them, and that they needed help finding the battle.
Laveck could not help. She only moved here from Cadillac, Mich., about two years ago.
“I was more confused than anything,” she said.
-Tyler Jett, TimesFreePress.com
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Georgia: Smyrna Looks to Sell Possible Civil War Hospital
SMYRNA, Ga. — Some Smyrna residents say they want their money back on a 2004 purchase of a home that was once believed to have been a Civil War hospital.
Roberta Cook, founder and coordinator of the River Line Historic Area, stands in front of house at 5811 Oakdale Road SE in Mableton that she convinced the city to purchase in 2004.
The Smyrna City Council voted unanimously to pay $145,000 for the home nine years ago, saving it from being razed by a proposed development. The house, at 5811 Oakdale Drive, Mableton, lies between Nickajack Park and the Chattahoochee River.
The one-story, two-bedroom brick home that sits on 1 acre was purchased from the home’s former resident, Frances Presley.
It isn’t in the boundaries of the city and sits in nearby Mableton, just 425 feet from the Smyrna line. The property was planned for annexation into Smyrna but when the recession hit and development fell through, annexation plans were dropped.
Smyrna has been trying to find a buyer for years, and Mayor Max Bacon said the city still doesn’t have confirmation that the home was actually used in the Civil War.
“It’s not a million-dollar deal, but it’s still taxpayer money,” Bacon said.
The most recent property listing had an asking price of $159,000.
Bacon said he didn’t question the time period of the home and was “disappointed” when the city learned there was no proof it operated as a hospital.
“My position has been we need to sell the property and get our money back,” Bacon said.
Smyrna Councilman Wade Lnenicka supported the purchase and said the city’s goals were “noble and proper.”
“The city stepped in and purchased the house to … buy some time to do more archeological studies and research to confirm or deny that it was historic,” Lnenicka said.
At the time, Lnenicka said, the housing market was going strong and the city believed it would be able to sell the home if it was found not to be historic.
“Land was going for more than what we paid for it,” Lnenicka said.
He says a structure supporting the house appears to be hand-cut timber and that could put the house as being originally built in the 1850s.
Still, there isn’t any proof it served as a hospital and Lnenicka says Smyrna has “no interest” in owning that property.
“Studies have shown something that would suggest the house might predate the Civil War, but there are no written records that we’re aware of confirming that,” Lnenicka said. “No deeds. No letters or diaries or period newspaper articles.”
It’s possible the house wasn’t a Civil War hospital, but it’s still a historic structure and worth saving, said Roberta Cook, founder of the Chattahoochee River Line Historic Area who pushed for the purchase.
The home was put on Cobb’s Historic Register in 2003, and a Georgia State University study dates the home’s construction to the 1850s, before the Civil War began.
Cook says that likely means it was used in the war.
“Generally speaking, if any structure was standing during the war … if it was standing it served a purpose either as a headquarters or as a hospital,” Cook said.
It’s mostly folklore and handed down stories that led neighbors to believe wounded soldiers were treated in the house.
Cook said she doesn’t believe she should question such stories.
“If these people over time have been saying this, who am I to discredit it?” she said.
-Nikki Wiley, Marietta Daily Journal
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Tennessee: Civil War History Means Tourist Dollars
CLEVELAND, Tenn. — With the exception of the commonwealth of Virginia, Tennessee has more Civil War sites than any other state in the union. This has given rise to a Heritage Tourism Industry that generates $16 billion across the state and more than $100 million annually in Bradley County.
Tennessee was a secessionist state with strong Union loyalties. Throughout the war these loyalties divided our cities, which were held by both Union and Confederate troops. More than 1,462 Civil War battles were fought in Tennessee, at least one in each of the state’s 95 counties. Today the entire state is designated by Congress as a Civil War National Heritage Area.
In this 150th anniversary year of the Civil War, communities across Tennessee are taking the opportunity to highlight their role in the war and educate the public about this key event in American history which changed the face of our nation forever.
The state’s Civil War Trail stretches from Memphis to Tri-Cities and includes such famous battle sites as Shiloh, Chattanooga, Blountville, Hartsville and dozens more. There were skirmishes in Bradley County as Union and Confederate forces fought to control the Hiwassee River Bridge in Charleston and the railroad in Cleveland. Both Union and Confederate troops slept in Charleston’s Henegar House and Union General William T. Sherman used the house as his headquarters for a short time during the Union occupation of Charleston.
Many of these events are being commemorated in 2013 and a list of the activities and places of interest can be found at www.tnvacation.com/civil-war/. Some of the highlights for our area include the 150th Anniversary Re-enactment of the Battle of Chickamauga. It will take place Sept. 21-22 between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. at 994 Daugherty Gap Road in Chickamauga, Ga. The 2013 Tennessee Signature Event will take place Oct. 9-12 at the Chattanooga Trade and Convention Center. The event is billed as the “Occupation and Liberation” symposium and will examine the battles, events and stories of the Civil War. Special programs also continue at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.
Commemorative events are also scheduled in Bradley County and include living history demonstrations in Cleveland Oct. 4-5 and in Charleston Nov. 8-9. The Friday events are for fifth-grade students. Friday evening and Saturday events are open to the general public. The November events will focus on Sherman and his march to aid General Burnside in Longstreet’s siege of Knoxville. Sherman stopped to camp his troops in and around Charleston and the general stayed at the Henegar House while his troops camped in Walker Valley at the present-day Irwin home.
Families have always taken road trips to learn about American history. Civil War sites usually top the list of destinations. Bradley County has an important story to tell which should be of interest not only to Tennesseans young and old, but to tourists who visit our great state. When they follow the Civil War Trail they will find Bradley County listed in the trail brochure and on the website. The trail follows Interstate 75 and Bradley County is ideally located between the many sites in and around Chattanooga and others, such as the Niota Depot, Blountville, Knoxville and more. Our two Civil War gateway markers link Cleveland and Charleston to the trail and give visitors a reason to visit our community and perhaps stop at some of our restaurants and shops while they are here.
We don’t have an amusement park, a beach or other attractions usually associated with a family vacation. However, our county’s scenic beauty and unparalleled history provide tremendous opportunities for growth in our local tourism industry. We are proud of our partnerships with neighboring counties and the state to promote our region. By working together we reach more visitors and create incentives to encourage them to stay longer. This translates into a strong impact on our economy.
Telling our story is important to our heritage. Attracting visitors is important to our economy. When visitors learn about our area, they stop for lunch and fuel or even decide to make Bradley County their headquarters to see sites all around Southeast Tennessee. As the Chamber’s visitors guide says, we’re “in the middle of it all” when it comes to enjoying all that Southeast Tennessee has to offer.
Whether it is special events, outdoor beauty and adventure or American history, Bradley County is “Tennessee at its best.” I am thankful and humbled to call this wonderful place my home.
-D. Gary Davis, Cleveland Daily Banner
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