The Confederate Flag Under Glass

I've been thinking a lot of late about the controversy in Lexington about the display of several Confederate battle flags in the Lee Chapel on Washington and Lee's campus.  As I work through my thoughts on this I want to begin with a dispute over a Confederate flag in a very different setting: a northern museum, where a captured flag is being maintained as, I guess, a souvenir.   Close readers of the faculty lounge may recall the controversy.  The Minnesota Historical Society has a flag captured by Minnesota soliders during The War, which some people in Norfolk would like back.  I can't quite tell whether the flag is on display in Minneapolis, but I do think that anyone there is protesting the flag -- in fact, the Historical Society is refusing to return the flag.  I think they're entirely correct on the legal claim.  And I would hazard a guess that the captured flag serves the purpose for them that captured ordnance serves for many southern courthouses: it's part of celebrating a victory.  (In at least one instance the captured ordnance is a mortar captured from the Confederate army and then apparently returned to a southern state.)  Certainly that seems to be the purpose that this piece of the Confederate flag served when it was first taken.  It's at the Smithsonian now.

I want to think about why we seem to not be bothered by the presence of a flag in one place while it's a real flashpoint in other places, such as on the sidewalk next to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  Obviously a lot of this has to do with context, such as who's using the flag and for what purpose.  But I guess it's obvious that I feel  rather differently about a Confederate flag in Minneapolis as part of a display on the Civil War, a Confederate flag alongside a Confederate monument in a cemetery,  Confederate flags as part of a protest on public property,  a Confederate flag alongside a Confederate monument on public property, and a Confederate flag displayed by a public body on public property.

I'm also wondering how many other northern museums have Confederate flags.  I've seen them  "under glass," which is my short-hand for saying as part of an exhibit,  at National Park displays at Gettysburg and at Spotsylvania, I'm pretty sure.  Though I want to say that in both places they were displayed alongside a United States flag of the era.  I see that the Duxbury Historical Society has a Confederate headquarters flag.  I'm guessing there are some more examples like this.

Then again, there's the "proper way to hang a Confederate flag" exhibit at Gettysburg College a few years back.  That's worth a separate post down the road.

The illustration is  a "flag was captured from a mounted company of the 12th Louisiana Regiment by the 4th Minnesota Regiment on May 14, 1863 at Jackson, Mississippi."  It is owned by the Minnesota Historical Society.  Here's a video from the MHS, which discusses another flag captured by the First Minnesota at Gettysburg during Pickett's charge.  It's worth watching.  Finally, a few years back I gave a lecture on anti-slavery and pro-slavery teaching at Washington and Lee before the Civil War (then called Washington College). 

Comments

[Ben]

The flag is in St. Paul, at the History Center, but not currently on display. It has been publicly shown as part of a larger civil war exhibit.

More prominently, we display the battle flags of Minnesota regiments at the state capitol rotunda. http://collections.mnhs.org/battleflags/index.php/10001446

[Barry]

"I want to think about why we seem to not be bothered by the presence of a flag in one place while it's a real flashpoint in other places, such as on the sidewalk next to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. "

Would you also not understand the difference between a captured Nazi flag in a museum and a Nazi flag flow by neo-Nazis outside that museum?

[Alfred L. Brophy]

Ben-- thanks for filling in the story! This is good to know.

Barry, thanks for commenting.

I do understand the difference. The sentences that follow what you quoted explain some of the differences. You may also have seen that I link to some of my previous blogging about captured ordnance. Moreover, I listed a hierarchy of places and ways that Confederate flags are displayed, which reflect the different uses of the flag.

I thought about using an example very similar to what you describe -- I was in a county historical museum recently that had a building devoted to the first and second World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Most of the display was of uniforms and weapons, but they also displayed a huge Nazi banner. It had been captured and brought back to North Carolina by a soldier from that county. Even in that setting, where it was part of memorializing our country's struggle and that county's contributions to the defeat of Nazism, it was disquieting to me. Not that I'd suggest taking it down.

[Former Editor]

The New York State Military Museum has quite a few confederate flags as part of its collection. I'm not aware of it ever displaying any of them outside of a "history of the civil war" type context.

[Barry]

"Barry, thanks for commenting.

I do understand the difference. The sentences that follow what you quoted explain some of the differences. You may also have seen that I link to some of my previous blogging about captured ordnance. Moreover, I listed a hierarchy of places and ways that Confederate flags are displayed, which reflect the different uses of the flag."

Then why did you write the article?
What does this sentence mean?

"I want to think about why we seem to not be bothered by the presence of a flag in one place while it's a real flashpoint in other places, such as on the sidewalk next to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. "

[Alfred L. Brophy]

Barry,

I don't think you read my post or the comment that I had responding to your comment, or you would have known why I was writing this. I'm writing about the importance of context and the uses that people make of flags. My initial post asked a question and then in the sentences that followed it went on begin to answer the question.

Your failure to read my post and the comment afterwards, which is a response to you, illustrates why conversations on this topic are so difficult. For you and all too many people the issue is clear and there's no need for a discussion. Unfortunately, the "clear" answer people arrive at without discussion is not so clear to people on the other side.