Another flag flap

No sooner do we emerge from a Confederate Battle Flag squabble in Lexington, VA than another emerges in Georgia.

The Southern battle colors are flying again, this time as part of an effort to unfurl huge Confederate flags along Georgia’s interstates.

Among the three flags that have gone up so far is a car dealership-sized Southern Cross north of Tifton that measures 30-by-50 feet. Two others are in north Georgia.

“We want to remind people of who they are and where they came from,” said Jack Bridwell, the division commander of state chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which is paying for the flags. “Being Southern is nothing to be ashamed of.”

None of the flags fly in metro Atlanta, though Bridwell said the group is actively looking to buy a site along the highway or sign a long-term lease.

Even without the Southern Cross flapping at Downtown Connector commuters, what organizers see as a way to honor soldiers during the 150th anniversary of the Civil War has nonetheless revived the debate over the history of the war and slavery’s role in it.

These Confederate flag dust-ups are like Hollywood divorces.  Every time you turn around, there’s another one.

Here’s a sound bite to ponder: “Bridwell, a retired educator, said any opposition is misguided. To him, the Civil War, ‘or war of Northern aggression, if you will,’ he said, was about economics and an unprovoked attack on Fort Sumter.”

If the attack on Ft. Sumter was unprovoked, then why was it “a war of Northern aggression”?  Go figure.

The Velociraptor-Chamberlain effect

Check out Gary Gallagher’s list of five overrated Civil War officers (with a tip of the hat to John Fea).  One of them is Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, not because he was a poor commander but because fiction and film have elevated him into the stratosphere of popular memory.

I call this the Velociraptor-Chamberlain effect.  It happens when a work of fiction or film sends a previously obscure subject into the stratosphere of popular imagination.  There were plenty of brave and talented field officers at Gettysburg, but only one got top billing in The Killer Angels and the movie adaptation.

Likewise, up until the 1990′s, Velociraptor was just one of many little carnivorous dinosaurs that rarely got any press.  And with good reason—other than its svelte form (the name means “quick robber”) and formidable claws, there wasn’t anything particularly impressive about it.

Clever girl! Velociraptor mongoliensis compared to a human, from Wikimedia Commons.

Then Michael Crichton came along.  Dinosaur artist Gregory Paul had assigned a larger relative, Deinonychus, to the genus Velociraptor, and Crichton adopted this classification in Jurassic Park.  The raptors in his book were therefore substantially bigger than their real-life counterparts, and formidable enough to take on his human characters.

Steven Spielberg evidently thought that even the beefed-up raptors in the novel were too puny for the big screen, so by the time the raptors made it to Hollywood they were about three times as tall as they had been in the fossil record.  Ironically, after the book came out, scientists identified yet another large relative of Velociraptor, as big as the ones in Spielberg’s film.

I’ve drifted off-topic, haven’t I?  Sorry; I’ve got this thing for dinosaurs.

Anyway, the point is that works of fiction often have a much greater impact on the way people remember the past than the interpretations of the people who study it.  How many monographs on Gettysburg do you think it would take to equal the impression made by Shaara’s novel?  I’d say quite a few.

The other thing that struck me about Gallagher’s piece is the reaction it elicited from readers.  Take a look at the comments; some readers assumed that because Gallagher takes issue with certain evaluations of a few Confederate generals, he must be politically correct and have an anti-South agenda.  Never mind that he included Union commanders in his list, and never mind that he didn’t say one word about the Confederacy itself.  Perhaps the online defenders of True Southronness should set aside the Confederate flag; a doctor’s reflex hammer seems like a much more appropriate emblem for them.

No more Rebel uniforms for Xbox Live users

Not even video gamers can escape the heritage wars:

Microsoft removed a Confederate soldier’s uniform and cap from an Xbox Live avatar items collection, following complaints from users about what the symbols represent.

The gray uniform and cap, recognizably symbols of the American Confederacy, went on sale in an “American History” collection that featured Revolutionary War-era garb, fireworks, and an Abe Lincoln stovepipe hat and beard.

Incidentally, two British army Revolutionary War items, a redcoat uniform and cap, also were removed.

But he’s so darn cute!  

Image from Kotaku

If you were standing behind the stone wall at Cemetery Ridge and this little guy came charging at you, wouldn’t you be tempted to pat him on the head and give him a big hug?

Wonder why they pulled the Redcoat gear.  Maybe somebody from Boston or the Carolina upcountry sent a strongly-worded letter.