Local SCV hoists ahistorical battle flag to that “Devil [Nathan Bedford] Forrest”
“[T]here is always the possibility of human feeling dethroning calm judgement.” — Walter Ney Keener (1920)
The so-called “Sons” (grandsons perhaps but more likely great- or second-great-grandsons these days) of the so-called “Confederate Veterans” (SCV) has hoisted a familiar looking but ahistorical battle flag over U.S. Interstate 40 in Burke County, North Carolina. It’s in honor of the insurgent slaveholder and early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest. How nice.
“The flag raised in Burke County has the center star missing because Forrest flew his flag that way to let people know he was on the battlefield and that the end was near. The tactic was used to strike fear in opponents, Smith said.” — The News Herald
Of course, Forrest’s flag was square — not rectangular. So this brand new SCV flag looks like a cross (pun intended) between the “Second Confederate Navy Jack” (rectangular with 13 stars) and the “Battle flag of Forrest’s Cavalry Corps” (only 12 stars and square in shape) — or maybe it’s a rectangular version of the “Battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia” with both the white border and center star removed? Or a “Christian Symbol that dates back to the old Roman-Celtic Wars” (DeVries, 2014)? It’s all so vexing.
I guess true rebels don’t have to fly any of the “official” flags of the War of the Rebellion, like the first “national flag of the Confederacy” (often mistaken for the American flag), or the second (“Stainless Banner” — often mistaken for a surrender flag), or the third (“Blood-Stained Banner”)?
“Smith, a member of the group, told WCNC the project is a response to the removal of Confederate memorials in the South, including the memorial for Gen. Nathan Forrest that was removed in Memphis, Tennessee, in December.” — News & Observer
The News & Observer says, “The flag cost the Sons of Confederate Veterans group nearly $7,000, according to Spectrum News.” So take that, Memphis! Personally, I wish they would put this money into something more constructive, like battlefield preservation. I wonder what Senator Sam would say about this addition to the neighborhood?
“Indeed, he played such an important role in the political struggle over civil rights that if Watergate had not occurred, Sam Ervin’s most significant historical legacy would have been his constitutional defense of racial segregation.” — Karl E. Campbell (2007)
For some local historical context and personal reflections on a similar rebel erection close to me (in more ways than one), see my previous post:
Or check out my short (first edition) eBook on the current (as well as previous) so-called “Christian flag” and its surprising relationship to the “Stainless Banner” and associated War of the Southern Rebellion over the right to enslave Indigenous peoples and African Americans (yeah…I know it’s a mouthful, but language really does matter here).
