Flags of our fathers

Last Wednesday, 145 years after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell declared April to be “Confederate History Month.” He did so as part of a campaign promise to the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Virginia isn’t the only state holding onto its Confederate past. Several states, including South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia, celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, on which state offices and, oftentimes, businesses are closed.

It’s a Southern tradition, and several states fly the Confederate flag hanging over government buildings on occasion. This tends to cause a huge uproar, mostly because of the Civil War’s ties to slavery.

Was slavery the cause of the Civil War? That’s what we were taught in fourth grade — after all, Lincoln freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation (well, he declared them free, and only some of them).

During AP U.S. History, I preferred to cite the issues of states’ rights, industrial technology versus rural farming and anger at Presidents James Buchanan and Abe Lincoln, at least for the people involved in making the “war or no war” decisions.

Mostly, I was just irritated that Lincoln always got so much credit when the Emancipation Proclamation was little more than bluster at the time he gave it.

The truth is that all those reasons contributed to the Civil War. Singling out one over the others doesn’t take into account the true political and economic climate of the time. And it isn’t fair to say the South fought in the Civil War to keep slavery around. Despite what some people think, there were plenty of Confederate soldiers who fought for the idea of states’ rights or to keep their homes and families safe.

I think it’s a bit silly to hang Confederate flags. The Civil War seems very far removed — or at least it does from central Indiana. There are wars closer to the present day — the one we’re in right now, the one when I grew up, for instance.

In the history of the United States, 145 years is a long time. No one who saw that war is alive today, nor are their children. Plus, the South lost that war. Why is it so important that they’re hanging on?

That question bugged me for a while, until I thought about the wars I’ll still want my grandchildren to remember. World War II veterans and Holocaust survivors still speak to schoolchildren and adults alike. People honor 109-year-old Frank Buckles, the last surviving American World War I veteran. A memorial in Washington, D.C., lists the names of those lost in Vietnam. Visitors watch the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

And that doesn’t even take into account the stories of the people who have fought and died, and are still fighting and dying, in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

I’ll want my grandchildren to remember these wars that they didn’t live through, that I didn’t live through. I’ll want them to respect the sacrifices people made and the courage and honor they showed. In my lifetime, and in my parents’ and grandparents’, those soldiers fought those wars to secure peace.

Even if I don’t agree with the reasons the government declared some of those wars, I can’t fault the people who fought to protect their families and their homes. Even if my children’s children and their children are more than a century removed from the conflicts close to my heart, I won’t want them to ever forget that people fought and died for their freedom.

That makes it easier to see why former Confederate states still raise their flag.


E-mail: hanns@indiana.edu