This article originally appears in The American Thinker
It was the first day at the Battle of Gettysburg and things were not going well for Abe Lincoln’s boys in blue. Robert E. Lee’s Johnny Rebs had arrived on the battlefield almost behind General Oliver Otis Howard’s 11th Corps which panicked the “Dutchmen” and sent them flying towards the town of Gettysburg.
This left General John Reynold’s 1st Corps all alone to face most of the Confederate Army. Surrounded on three sides, the “Black Hats” were taking a terrible beating. In the 143rd Pennsylvania, the color bearer, Sergeant Benjamin Crippin stood in full view of the enemy, waving the flag vigorously, trying to rally the troops to hold their ground and keep fighting.
But the inexorable logic of superior numbers ground down Reynold’s men and eventually, they too broke and ran. As they retreated, Sergeant Crippin, still carrying the flag which now featured 23 bullet holes shredding the precious fabric, turned toward the enemy and in an act of defiance memorialized in legend and statue, shook his fist at the oncoming Rebels, daring his foes to take the flag from him. It is reported he did this several times, even eliciting sympathy from General Ambrose Hill when his troops, enraged at the taunting figure, shot him down in a hail of bullets.
There was no more deadly job in the Union Army than color bearer – and none more honored. Carrying the flag into battle made one an instant target, the enemy believing quite correctly that killing the color bearer would sap the will to fight in their opponents. It became a point of honor for a regiment that if the standard bearer fell, another would immediately pick the fallen flag off the ground and take his place. There was a reverence for the flag then, a feeling of personal responsibility for upholding what it represented. It was a tangible way for these men to express something inexpressible that lived in their breasts and enabled them to march into almost certain death and remain while their comrades fell around them. The flag gave them courage while reminding them of what they were fighting for.
What is it about the flag that brings to the surface such overpowering emotion and devotion? Grown men weep at its passing. And thank God there are still men and women willing to die protecting what it represents. But as a symbol, why does it take up such a large corner of our hearts?
There are so few things that actually unite Americans in a traditional sense that make us a nation. Other countries have hundreds even thousands of years of cultural touchstones and myth that are almost hard wired into their brains to make them a “nation.” The United States on the other hand, is too young for myth making. Instant legends like Davey Crockett or George Custer exist alongside their more unattractive and definitely human historical selves, taking the luster off some of their accomplishments. And other symbols of nationhood found elsewhere like castles or palaces or ancient battlefields are absent here.
For Americans, it is in the flag that we infuse all of our feelings of love and respect for country, for home, for each other. Each of us are reminded of something different as the flag passes. This is what makes it a personal icon, a talisman to be touched and stroked so that the longing in our hearts to belong to something greater than ourselves is fulfilled. The flag is home. And no matter where home might be, we, the most mobile of modern societies, carrying that feeling of home with us in our travels, see the flag as an anchor, a permanent standard representing all the good and decent things in ourselves and our country.
We may be the only nation whose national anthem is actually an ode to a flag. We are all familiar with the story of how Francis Scott Key ended up writing “The Star Spangled Banner,” a poem to commemorate the overpowering emotion he felt upon seeing the flag still flying after a night of horrific bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British during the War of 1812. And we are all too familiar with the first verse of Key’s poem, sung ad nauseum at every opportunity imaginable so that the very moving and heartfelt words are mouthed unconsciously, and the anthem itself butchered into unrecognizabilty by pop stars and celebrities.
Almost never heard are the anthem’s three other verses, extraordinarily descriptive stanzas of the relief and pride felt by the author upon seeing that huge 42’ by 30’ flag waving in the “dawn’s early light.” In the final stanza, Key captures in a few short lines of poetry all the patriotic devotion that many of us feel when we see the flag pass:
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n – rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto—”In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave
Today is Flag Day. I think it fitting that we honor not only our flag but also the “free men” who “stand between their loved homes and the war’s desolation” around the world, protecting us and reminding us all what the flag truly means – simple, patriotic love for one’s home and country.
This love, shared by tens of millions of Americans, has lately been belittled, sneered at, even thought of as “evil” in some quarters. The flag itself has taken something of a beating in recent decades, used and abused by both commercial enterprises and thoughtless dissidents who shamelessly appropriate the feelings Americans have for our national emblem to sell everything from soap to cars. Or, in the case of the haters of liberty, to deliberately incite rage by burning it. There are even some who wish to supplant the nobility of what the flag represents by injecting all the sins (both real and imagined) committed by American governments over two hundred years into our national symbol in order to mold it into an emblem of shame.
In this, they and all the haters will fail. As long as there are men willing to pick up the standard when it falls, the flag will continue to represent all of the good and noble things about this country, forcing us to wipe a tear from our eye whenever we see it pass, remembering all that it means to be an American.
Please fly a flag today to honor both the emblem itself and all those who have served it in the past and continue to serve it today.
10:04 am
Today is Flag Day… And long may she wave!
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands. One Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. (images courtesy of http://www.3dflags.com – thank you!) May this
10:13 am
Allow me to be the first to congratulate you on a fine essay on a far too generally overlooked day of commemoration.(Second, but who’s counting?)
The richness of the flag as a symbol derives from what it represents, and those very democratic principles become most at risk when they are co-opted or hijacked by one side – any side – in the great and heated two hundred year old argument that is and has been American politics to the exclusion and demonization of the other.
It was after all Abraham Lincoln himself who understood this in his second inaugural address, during the most heated and violent of all of our historical political disputes:
“Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully….”
..and a more succinct analysis of American political disputation I cannot imagine.
The Civil War, your starting point in this fine piece, provides us with two emotion-laden artistic moments as well.
The 1989 film “Glory” – for my money the best Civil War film ever made and one of Hollywood’s best and most shaded considerations of U.S. history ever, climaxes of course with the flag-led charge on the Conferate fort and a moment of supreme yet emotional irony when Denzel Washington’s character, an embittered former slave who has earlier refused to carry the flag, dies clutching and upholding it over the fallen body of Mattew Broderick’s Col. Robert Gould Shaw.
And even more so – the supreme moment of one of the great coming of age novels of world literature, Stephen Crane’s “The Red Badge of Courage” (a book often badly taught by teachers who themsleves don’t get it to students too young to understand it)occurs when protagonist Henry Fleming redeems himself in his own eyes by grabbing the flag from a mortally-wounded bearer and leading his regiment to victory in a bayonet charge (in a battle widely believed to be Antietam). The importance of the flag in this passage is just as you have described it so eloguently above, and Crane impresses us with the majesty and beauty of the moment.
10:17 am
Speaking of which – let Crane speak for himself describing Henry Fleming’s seizing of the flag:
“Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born a love, a despairing fondness for this flag which was near him. It was a creation of beauty and invulnerability. It was a goddess, radiant, that bended its form with an imperious gesture to him. It was a woman, red and white, hating and loving, that called him with the voice of his hopes. Because no harm could come to it he endowed it with power. He kept near, as if it could be a saver of lives, and an imploring cry went from his mind.
In the mad scramble he was aware that the color sergeant flinched suddenly, as if struck by a bludgeon. He faltered, and then became motionless, save for his quivering knees.
He made a spring and a clutch at the pole. At the same instant his friend grabbed it from the other side. They jerked at it, stout and furious, but the color sergeant was dead, and the corpse would not relinquish its trust. For a moment there was a grim encounter. The dead man, swinging with bended back, seemed to be obstinately tugging, in ludicrous and awful ways, for the possession of the flag.
It was past in an instant of time. They wrenched the flag furiously from the dead man, and, as they turned again, the corpse swayed forward with bowed head. One arm swung high, and the curved hand fell with heavy protest on the friend’s unheeding shoulder.”
10:30 am
Thanks, Brother. And you are right about Red Badge of Courage while I’ll make Glory the second best Civil War film behind Gettysburg.
I was actually looking for a story this morning on the charge made by the 54th at Fort Wagner. I seem to remember them losing 5 color bearers in the assault. Similarly, the 10th (?) Minnesota who held Cemetary Ridge on the second day at Gettysburg and charged a whole division, losing 90% of its men lost several standard bearers as well. The survivors were extraordinarily proud that despite their huge losses, they never lost the flag.
Your evocation of Crane’s masterpiece is quite moving and appropriate. I vividly recall Mr. Hellerman’s discussion of Crane’s themes of redemption and loss as a sophomore. And you’re right – I was too young to appreciate not only the exquisite writing but the horrific and dark imagery that Crane used to emotionally illuminate his absolute hatred of war.
I doubt it is even required reading in most public schools anymore.
10:48 am
I knew you were going to mention Turner’s “Gettysburg” since it was you who alerted me to its excellence. (Parenthesis: I thought “Gods and Generals” to be a much better film than it was reviewed to be, though not in the same league as “Gettysburg” or “Glory.”)
I was going to add another passage from Crane’s masterpiece – which is online in its entirety at several sites. Hard to choose which, though – most of the last four chapters center to one degree or another around the flag.
But the moment I thought most poignant was during the second climactic charge in the closing chapters, when Henry observes empathetically the desperate attempt of the enemy color-bearer to preserve his flag from capture but fails and dies in the attempt.
The emotional bond that Henry feels to his fallen enemy reminds me of Lincioln’s words above. It also underscores the bond that unites us who may be on opposing sides of the political struggles that seem to divide us today.
10:50 am
Happy Birthday United States Army
Happy Birthday
United States Army
231 years
The US Army was formed on June 14, 1775
Thank you to all that serve. Its also Flag Day!
Polipundit remembers
Black Five Remembers
Rightwing Nuthouse Remembers.
Help out Castle Argghhh in Project Va…
11:29 am
Dissin’ U.S. Flag Day
This doesn’t surprise me anymore. But it’s worth noting.
Clicking on my link to Dogpile this AM, I note that they’ve opted for a logo update that recognizes Flag Day here in the U.S. Good for them.
But this small token of recognit…
11:30 am
Thanks, Brothers Moran, for your interesting and informative essays on our flag. As one who has served under it, I could never understand why any desicration of it is allowed or condoned. It is a symbol of our country and history. Say anything you want, smartly or stupidly: that’s your 1st Amendment Right. But burn or otherwise desicrate Old Glory, and this Vet will roll in hot on you, and expend ordinance on your butt!
1:48 pm
In honor of the flag
This day in 1777, the Stars and Stripes became the national flag of the United States.It has waved over this nation for 229 years. May it proudly fly for many, many more.A few reminders about displaying the U.S. flag:When hun
2:52 pm
Thanks for reminding me. My flag is now flying.
1:59 am
[...] Today was Flag Day. Few people could capture the importance of this day like Rick Moran does. Whether you are liberal or conservative, as an American you will really like this. [...]
2:58 am
Old Glory’s Day- National Flag Week
Old Glory…A symbol of hope and pride, inspiring us during times of conflict and comforting us during moments of sorrow and loss…
9:55 am
Now that is the nuthouse’s needle and the spoon.
BTW, “Gettysburg” was a great movie in every scene that Martin Sheen wasn’t in. He was a horrible Robert E. Lee and as the story goes, he wasn’t the first choice. The best was Jeff Daniels as Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.
7:28 pm
What is America?
Wouldn’t it be great if the idea of self-determination spreads around the world? If we were no longer the only game in town? It’s hard-wired into us, I think. I’m thinking about little kids – probably the first sentence they utter is “me do, me do…
2:21 am
Submitted for Your Approval
First off… any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now… here are all the links submitted by members of the Watcher’s Council for this week’s vote. Council li…
2:37 am
The Council Has Spoken!
First off… any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now… the winning entries in the Watcher’s Council vote for this week are The Iraqi Insurgency Has No Centra…