On July 3, 1863, Confederate forces led by General Robert E. Lee attacked Union forces at the Battle of Gettysburg. Among them was the 28th Virginia Infantry Regiment. On the other side, Union defenders included the 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment.
When the dust cleared, Minnesota had control of the 28th Virginia Infantry Regiment’s “battle flag,” that Confederate rebel flag we all know and properly hate today. Now, 160 years later, the two states are still fighting over that darn flag.
The Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania wasn’t just the location of the Civil War’s bloodiest battle (and the bloodiest three days in American military history), but also marked its turning point. Lee’s ill-fated invasion of the north, designed to destroy the bulk of the Union army and convince its leadership to let the rebel states go, failed catastrophically, marking the beginning of the end of the war.
On the third day of the battle, the 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment, famed for fighting in almost every one of the war’s major engagements, was ordered to charge one of the Confederate flanks as the rebels pushed up Cemetery Ridge during Pickett’s Charge. During the battle, 70% of the Minnesotans were killed, wounded, or captured. And in the midst of all that carnage, a bloody game of capture the flag ensued. This excellent account by Katy Sawyer in The Washington Post way back in 2000—definitely worth reading—notes how “[i]n the heat and desperation of combat … the flag was the thing they concentrated on. It had to be visually dramatic.” Lots of people lost their lives over those pieces of cloth.
Great drama surrounded the flag on the Minnesota side:
William Lochren, in his “Narrative of the First Regiment, Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars,” recalled that “the last of our color guard, then carrying our tattered flag, was here shot through the hand, and the flagstaff cut in two. Cpl. Henry D. O’Brien of Company E instantly seized the flag by the remnant of the staff.” O’Brien, carrying the broken staff and the tattered flag, “with his characteristic bravery and impetuosity sprang with it to the front at the first sound of the word charge, and rushed right up to the enemy’s line, keeping it noticeably in advance of every other color. . . . The effect was electrical.” To a man, the 1st Minnesota sprang forward to protect its flag.
O’Brien was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. The Virginians fought for their flag with equal ferocity:
Sgt. John Eakin carried the battle colors of the 28th Virginia to the wall. He was hit three times. A private grabbed the flag and was immediately shot. Col. Robert Allen picked up the flag and was instantly mortally wounded. He managed to hand it to Lt. John Lee, who stepped up on the wall and waved it. A shot hit the flagstaff, knocked it out of his hands and down. He grabbed it, climbed back over the wall and fell wounded, yet kept it waving.
The Virginia flag was eventually captured by Pvt. Marshall Sherman, and though the details are contested, he did earn his own Medal of Honor for the capture.
And this would all be a historical footnote, except Virginia really wants that Confederate battle flag back. There’s the usual talk of “heritage,” and one guy who unsuccessfully sued claimed returning the flag would help us “come together as Americans” in the year 2000. That flag is anything but unifying.
Minnesota says that the flag was won on the battlefield at a staggering cost in blood, and it’s theirs.
Minnesota ain’t wrong.
President Grover Cleveland supported its return in 1887, though Virginia’s then-governor, a Confederate veteran, noted that the flags “are the property of the victors” and that the country didn’t need to “be agitated again by pieces of bunting that mean nothing now.” Even Jefferson Davis, the short-lived Confederate president, agreed that the battle flags belonged to the victors.
Congress then tried to return the banners in 1905, during the Spanish-American War, but Minnesota hilariously pretended it was lost.
In the 1960s, as Southern states incorporated the rebel flag into their state flags, new demands arose. “Minnesota refused. In a polite exchange of letters, its historical society director said the charge of the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg – in which its 262 men took on six times its number – was among the state’s proudest moments,” reported the Roanoke Times. “The 28th’s flag symbolized that sacrifice, he wrote: ‘I honestly believe that it has greater historical value if it remains in Minnesota than if it is returned to Virginia.’”
Virginia has attempted lawsuits, “inter-museum loans” (as if anyone would fall for that), multiple legislative resolutions, and even tried to enlist the U.S. Army, all thankfully to no avail. My favorite was Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura’s response to one of those requests: “We took it. That makes it our heritage.” When then-Gov. Mark Warner (now a U.S. senator) asked for it in 2003, his Minnesotan counterpart Tim Pawlenty said, “They’re not getting it. … We believe it’s rightfully ours, and we’re not giving it back to Virginia.”
Pawlenty, a Republican, attempted a presidential run in 2012. Today, I bet he’d return the flag to curry favor with the racist MAGA nihilists.
The issue of Minnesota’s Confederate battle flag resurfaced in recent years as the Black Lives Matter movement forced a new reckoning over the racist symbol. It is no longer publicly displayed as this era lacks the nuance to place it in its proper context. Minnesota wouldn’t be displaying a racist symbol. Rather, it would be celebrating how it helped defeat, at great cost, the forces of racism. And the racists wouldn’t care either way.
kos
Source link
