On February 12, 1861, in the small settlement of
Union, Missouri, Sheriff A.W. Maupin gasped and held aloft in his left hand a
small flag. With his right hand, Sheriff
Maupin raised a cocked and loaded revolver.
He stood at the center of a room divided between supporters of
slave-holding Secessionists and those in favor of holding the Union of the
United States solid. From one side of
the room, Secessionist sympathizers shouted “Down with the flag!” From the opposite side of the room, advocates
of the Union raised their voice in a chorus of “Hurrahs!”
The flag held by Sheriff Maupin was the stars and
stripes of these United States of America.
The sheriff eventually challenged the Confederate supporters to try and take
the flag from him if they wanted to bring it down.
His challenge went unanswered.
As a point of fact, though, the U.S. flag was the
first casualty of the Civil War. During
the very first authentic battle of the war, at Fort Sumter, South Carolina
(following a siege lasting several months), Confederate attackers made a point
to target the U.S. flag. On April 13,
1861, the Confederates finally shot down the flagstaff that held the stars and
stripes aloft. The U.S. soldiers managed
to raise the flag again using a small staff on the fort’s ramparts, but were
forced to surrender and pull down the flag on April 14.
The Confederate flag went up in place or ours.
Years of bloodshed followed wherever the two flags
clashed together.
The other day, while driving through the small
mountain town of Lincoln, Montana (the same town where Ted Kaczynski—the Unabomber—was
found), I spotted a home where the stars and stripes hung on one side of the
entry door and a large Confederate flag hung from a staff on the other side of
the door.
I am something of a Libertarian. I don’t believing in banning any form of
thought. I don’t think sales of
anything, including the Confederate flag, should be banned. In my mind, the sullied act of dragging the
Confederate flag back into the public square during the civil rights scuffles
of the 1960s is beside the point. Still,
given all of that, I am appalled when I see the Confederate flag on display
right beside my U.S. flag.
History always pulls me directly under the stars and
stripes.
That is my flag.
--Mitchell
Hegman
Most historical information thanks to:
www.washingtonmo.com
Thanks for the insights!
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