Flag Culture and the Consolidation of Confederate Nationalism

Abstract

AS WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL'S TRAIN RUMBLED THROUGH NORTH Carolina on April 15, 1861, the celebrated diarist of the London Times spotted his first Confederate flag, waving atop a pine tree stripped of its branches. By the time he witnessed a similar banner floating over Fort Sumter Charleston, South Carolina, the Englishman had seen countless versions of the new Stars and Bars displayed forests, settlements, towns, and cities along his route. All was noise, dust, and patriotism communities readying themselves for war, he reported, observing that true revolutionary furor was in full sway. The activity that buzzed around the flags caused him to marvel how [t]hese pieces of coloured bunting seem to twine themselves through heart and brain. (1) Though Russell was impressed by the initial enthusiasm of such flag waving, he sensed that this Confederate frenzy was fueled by novelty rather than tree devotion. He suspected that loyalties to the new republic would face sterner tests the future, as the excitement of secession gave way to the grimness of war. Soon enough, the new republic's symbols would have to be judged by their ability to sustain morale on the battlefield and to capture the popular imagination, the same way that the American flag would be judged the North during the early 1860s. Russell went so far as to suggest that the rebellion might even succeed if southerners could endow their own banners with the same sort of mystical aura that clung to the Star-Spangled Banner. If ever there is a real sentiment du drapeau got up the South, he noted, will be difficult indeed for the North to restore the Union. (2) Russell's musings about Confederate flag devotion call to mind several recent attempts to reframe the perennial issue of the quality of southern nationalism during the American Civil War. His suggestive comments implied, as Drew Gilpin Faust would state more forcefully 1988, that Confederate nationalism was not merely a reserve of earlier loyalties, nor could it be quantified during the secession crisis by those who speculated about likely Confederate fortunes. (3) Russell anticipated contemporary scholarship his understanding of nationalism as an ongoing set of cultural innovations that would be undertaken by white southerners during the war itself. While Confederates would build their sentiment du drapeau upon earlier celebrations of flags American patriotic life, they would also invent a broad range of rituals, literary productions, and musical efforts. Such cultural activities, which Faust's Creation of Confederate Nationalism put on the research agenda for Civil War scholars, represented the sort of large-scale, identity-forming collective discourse to which modern scholars of nationalism have increasingly turned their attention. (4) In this context, earlier attempts to sketch the deficiency of southern loyalties at the time of secession have given way to studies concerned with how southern citizens became attached to the larger Confederate effort through the crucible of their own wartime initiatives. (5) In focusing attention on how the flag, specifically, might sustain the rebellion, Russell presaged an even more recent emphasis on the martial orientation of Confederate nationalism. Though Faust touched on this theme, Gary W. Gallagher has gone much farther toward offering a more explicit battle-centered perspective his The Confederate War. This volume, which appeared 1997, highlights the crucial importance of generals, and especially of Robert E. Lee, as symbols of motivation and inspiration for Confederate patriots. Taking issue with Faust at many points, Gallagher presents evidence of a healthy and vital Confederate nationalism, though his own evidence qualifies, at least part, some of his conclusions. (6) Even so, his study establishes beyond doubt the allure of military glory and sacrifice to Confederates and thus helps to explain the power that military symbols such as battle flags wielded war. …