Zach Foster: On the Confederate Flag, Part 3

A selection from “On the Confederate Flag” 2^nd Edition, December 2010

By Zach Foster

This is one in a series of articles being featured on the Political Spectrum as part of Secession Week.

Click to view On the Confederate Flag, Part 2

The structure of the Confederate Armed Forces

There were several ways in which men could serve in the Confederate Army.  Though the Confederate States did have a navy and a Marine Corps, the primary fighting force was the Army.  Much like today’s US Army is branched out as the regular Army, the Army Reserve, and the Army National Guard, the Confederate Army was branched into the Army of the Confederate States of America (ACSA), made up of those who had enlisted in the long term, and the Provisional Army of the Confederate States (PACS), made up of short-term enlistments or draftees.  The vast majority of men who served in the national army enlisted (or were drafted) into the Provisional Army.  Unlike their ACSA counterparts, the PACS soldiers would be discharged once the North surrendered or acknowledged the Confederate States of America.

Few blacks made it into the national army, since they were second class citizens in the Confederate States, until black units were authorized in the Army in March of 1865.  The majority of blacks who saw combat on behalf of the Confederacy fit into one of three categories: (1) auxiliaries employed by soldiers or the army itself, who armed themselves and more often than not were put in the position to fight or risk capture or death; (2) Home Guard or militia soldiers (there were a great many organized militias with blacks in the beginning of the war, and a great many rag-tag hastily assembled militias toward the end of the war, similar in nature and purpose to the German Volkssturm of late 1944-45, which were often encountered by Sherman’s army during the March to the Sea); (3) civilians that were called up from the locale of a battlefield to provide labor or to fight for a brief period of hours or days (the unorganized militia according to the Constitution).  Many Hispanics who served did so in the national army or in the Texas and Florida state militias.

The Confederate military strength also relied greatly on militias and volunteers.  Though the Confederate Army was a new creation, the state militias had existed since the American Revolution, though the nature of the militias varied from state to state.  Some were active military entities before the war, training and drilling on a regular part-time basis, while others were inactive militias that were reactivated by their state’s governor and calls were made for volunteer enlistments.  Once secession occurred, every state in the Union and the Confederacy activated the state militia.

There were many units of the Confederate military made up from volunteers.  These volunteer regiments boosted the strength of either the national army or the state militias, depending on who was issuing the call.  Though some state militias occasionally hooked up with the national army to fight in major campaigns, most stayed in their respective state to defend against Union invaders.  Most state militia units saw combat, except for those who were formed only on a temporary basis to meet a short-term military goal, as described in the paragraphs above.

Another way that the Confederate armed forces were augmented was through drafting.  Towards the end of the war, the Confederate government desperately drafted soldiers of a much wider age range.  However, most of the drafting that went on was in the form of temporary impression.  Quite often would members of the inactive militia (i.e., any male old enough to carry a gun) be called upon into the state militia or the provisional army to set up defenses around an area in danger of being overrun by the Union, and often they would be charged with working artillery or another vital job that would free up regular soldiers to fight.  This is how a great many slaves saw combat, since they rarely had leave to enlist in a regular military entity, but their masters would have no say against the army activating their slave for a short period of time.

Whether a soldier and his respective unit belonged to a local militia, or whether he was in the national army, all confederate military forces waved the Confederate battle flag and earned the right to call themselves Confederate veterans.  Men like these, both white and black, were on many occasions given a pension by their state (in the 1880s and 90s) for vital services given to the state during the Civil War.

Why the Confederacy was wrong, but how the Confederate flag is not a threat

Many people see the Confederate flag as a threat to the well-being of the country because of its misuse by radicals and white supremacists such as the Ku Klux Klan.  However, if bigots like the KKK and others are the main reason for political correctness to demonize the flag, then Christianity itself ought to be demonized, since the Klan has perverted that as well.  The Confederate flag is a symbol, and the meaning of that symbol will lie in the eye of the beholder.  Sometimes the beholder will see history, and other times the beholder will see hate.

The Confederate States of America was not a real country, though its inhabitants tried to prove otherwise.  They were wrong.  They should not be blamed because their often racist class society was politically incorrect, since Southerners were guilty of a political incorrectness far worse than racism or an unbalanced caste system.  Secession is why the South was wrong.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that when a government becomes tyrannical over a people, those people have the right to overthrow the government.  If only such were the case…  The Federal government exerted no tyranny whatsoever, nor did the Southern population attempt to overthrow such a “tyrannical” entity.  Instead, eleven states seceded from the freest country on Earth in an attempt to run their own program.  Though Southerners felt that they were not receiving adequate representation in Congress, they still had two Senators from every state, and numerous U.S. Representatives—the same representation that every other state had.  The biggest short-term reason for secession was the victory of the northerner Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election.  Southerners may have been angered by his victory, but their moral basis for protesting was nullified by the complete omission of Lincoln from southern ballots.  Southerners were in the minority and, like other political minorities who lose elections, they should have cut their losses and planned for the next one.

Secession was the great political equivalent of a child, having lost a game of handball, taking his ball from the playground and going home.  Secession was the dishonorable abandonment of diplomacy when there were still options on the bargaining table.  To have simply broken away from the freest republic on Earth, that to which Southerners had formerly sworn allegiance, was the reason they should be blamed.

Nonetheless, Southerners are not the only ones to blame.  Northerners pushed and prodded them all the way in political and economic antagonism.  Northern politicians voted to set high tariffs on imported items, damaging the Southern agrarian economy which couldn’t support mass production of goods the way the Northern economy could.  Northern politicians allowed themselves to be influenced by abolitionists and, rather than continue to compromise over an economic (though immoral) institution which Southern economy depended on, they set out to end it altogether.  Finally, though the Confederate army took Fort Sumter, they did so on the rationale that they were taking a military installation that was in their homeland and rightfully theirs.  The North, rather than let the few seceding Southern states starve from their independence and welcome them back to prosperity, sent troops down to pacify them, resulting in the secession of four MORE states and pro-Southern armed rebellion in Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and the Indian (Oklahoma) and New Mexico territories.  The actions of the U.S. government were the equivalent of a parent punishing a rebellious teenager by shooting him in the legs.  Clearly, both sides are equally to blame in the premature secession and the chaotic war that followed.

150 years later, the Confederate flag should not be thought of as a symbol of hate.  In 21^st century America, the Confederate flag should be a symbol of history and culture—of a people who started a revolution and failed, of a culture prevalent in one large region of the United States of America.  Recent activists have attempted to bring the Confederate flag recognition as a symbol of heritage and not hate.  HK Edgerton, former president of the NAACP’s Asheville, North Carolina branch, is a Confederate revivalist who marched to Washington D.C. in 2009 wearing a Confederate Army uniform and waving the battle flag in the hope of meeting with President Barack Obama.  He said in an interview, “I met a lot of people and talked to a lot of people and I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the positive response I’ve received, especially from people in the North.”  Edgerton is one of many Southerners who wish to remove the Confederate flag from the list of hate symbols.  “It’s a long road,” Edgerton says, “but there’s hope.”

Continued in Part 4

Image used courtesy of Confederateamericanpride.com and is used via fair use.  It is the property of its respective owner, not the article author.