View single post by PvtClewell
 Posted: Sat Oct 6th, 2007 04:49 am
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PvtClewell
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Joined: Wed Jun 13th, 2007
Location: North Carolina USA
Posts: 420
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Mana: 
 I'm a little bit confused here. I thought the Confederate battle flag was precisely that — a flag used in battle. Wasn't it used by regiments to help dress and guide their lines during the smoke and fog of battle? Isn't that why a regiment's unit number and battle honors are usually sewn into them? Somebody help me on this. Am I think of a different flag? The Museum of the Confederacy has tens, if not more, of unit battle flags in storage when they're not on display.

I understand what the CBF has sorrowfully become symbolic of now, but wasn't it originally a rallying point for soldiers in a line of battle? I don't think it was meant to symbolize anything — not slavery, not states rights — other than this is where your unit is if you get lost while attacking up Little Round Top.

Somehow, the CBF became something else after the war, and I suspect the Lost Cause mythology had a lot do do with it. Somebody here said the winners get to write the history, but that's not always true. The Lost Cause took on a life of its own, and for the longest time, the LC advocates were writing the history and it sometimes still persists. The CBF, I think, became the banner for the LC, and then sadly, too easily, mutated into other things.