THE POSTAGE STAMP FLAG
It was the centennial celebration of the War Between the States. Books and articles on the conflict came into vogue. The US Postal Service issued commemorative stamps depicting the various battles. John Ford directed his only Civil War movie Horse Soldiers starring John Wayne. Georgia adopted a state flag incorporating a Confederate battle emblem. South Carolina ran the Confederate navy jack above its state capitol. I remember none of these things as they happened. What I do remember is receiving for my sixth birthday in 1962 a set of blue and gray plastic figures with interchangeable rifles and swords to fit in their hands. The set also included two flags presented on toothpicks. One was the flag shown flying on our local TV station just before shutting down for the night. The other was a striking orange flag I had never seen before, criss-crossed with stars on a blue pattern.
I had the blue and gray soldiers fight each other for awhile, but something troubled me--I didn’t know who was supposed to win.
"Which side is our side?" I asked my mom, presenting a soldier of each color for her inspection.
"We are the blue," she replied. "Wisconsin fought on the blue side."
"Then the blue soldiers are the good guys and the gray soldiers are the bad guys," I said.
"No," she replied, "They are both good. We’re together and all one country now."
Afterwards, I had them fight on the same side and not against each other.
***
A few years ago, I picked up a magazine in an unremembered waiting room and began to read about a Civil War battle highlighted inside. It was said to have been the scene of the largest infantry charge in US history, taking place near the end of 1864. I was intrigued that such a momentous battle should have happened so late in the Civil War. Something else intrigued me even more. It was a quote about the battle from a visiting dignitary uttered many years after the battle: "The bravest men in the history of the world died here."
***
The rows of faded stone crosses and slabs stretched gently uphill for an eighth of a mile towards the Carnton Plantation. I entered by the waist-high iron gate. A few paces inside, soldiers in gray stood picket near the larger commemorative monuments. Ladies in black gathered, faces veiled and antebellum dresses skirting the ground. Perched on a stool close by the mourners, a man with an accordion began playing "Nearer My God to Thee." As if keeping time, a Confederate battle flag flapped fully exposed like a Viceroy butterfly caught in the morning breeze.
From the far length of the cemetery, the soft tap of a drum arose, barely audible above the hymn as a company of soldiers emerged, rifles over their shoulders, bayonets fixed. As the phantom brigade marched past the rows of simple stone markers that stood guard over fifteen hundred Confederate graves, the backdrop of accordion music was lost amid the clanking of metal from this approaching column of soldiers in step.
Rat-a-tat tat tat, rat-a-tat tat tat. The drum and the clanking, the drum and the clanking--everything else seemed still.
*
It is the last day of November, 1864. During the previous night an entire Union Army trapped south of Franklin, Tennessee slipped through rebel lines to entrenchments on the outskirts of the city. A river, keeping them from further retreat, the soldiers in blue feverishly spend the hours of darkness setting up and reinforcing breastworks across the crest of high ground just to the south of the city proper.
Confederate General John Bell Hood is furious. The opposing Union forces all passed unmolested during the night within a couple of hundred feet of numerous rebel outposts. He orders the Army of Tennessee to mobilize for a full assault. A battle formation two hundred regiments deep masses for the onslaught.
General Patrick Cleburne, the "Stonewall Jackson of the West," is ordered to prepare his men to charge the center of the Union line. Cleburne looks up at the Yankee breastworks fortifying the heights at the entrance to Franklin. He sees headlogs, cannon, sharpshooters, and crisscrossing timber spikes. He says to one of his brigade commanders, "Well, Govan, if we are to die, let us die like men."
Rebel General Otho Strahl turns to his own formation. "Boys," he says, "This will be short and desperate."
General Adams, sword in hand, leads his ranks of infantry gray on horseback. Waves of rebel soldiers march onto the grassy, open field of battle, slowly edging forward.
*
The unit of gray reenactors broke formation and lined up behind one of the mourners, the ceremony’s opening speaker. The woman in black opened a letter and began to read. Perhaps for some there was nearby traffic, a barking dog, and talking children. But for many there was only her voice.
"I’ve wanted to be here for a good number of years, but due to my health not until now have I been able to speak at this observance," she began, already in tears. "What happened to the men who perished here in the Battle of Franklin happened to my people. My own blood kin lie buried here among the thousands who died so bravely. We will never forget their courage and sacrifice." Only her voice and the cracking of a branch or two twisting in the wind...
*
Crack! Crack! Boom! Bang! The battle commences at 4:00 PM. The mass of men trudge forward well into the open field, then hurtle onward headlong at a dead run. Cannon fire rakes through the ranks of gray. The charge doesn’t falter. Musket fire picks up all along the lines of breastworks in a long, smoky plume as Confederate battle flags wave defiantly just below the redoubts. Rows of rebel gray are flattened in a hailstorm of fire. The Charge wavers, falls back and reforms. Colonels lead their men, sabers in hand. Generals lead colonels.
General Hood watches the piecemeal dissolution of his army and its brigades. In the late afternoon sun, from the vantage point of a distant hillside, their reddish-orange flags appear to him small but visible--tangerine patches carried on toothpicks.
Detachments of horse-drawn Confederate cannon gallop alongside charging infantry, unlimber and fire cannon shells from the open field into Union entrenchments--the very same cannon which began the war as yet-to-be-melted-down church bells chiming news of Southern succession. Yankee soldiers concentrate murderous fire, but the rebel waves never stop coming, massing right up to the breastwork barricades themselves. Defending cannoneers hear the crunching of human bone as discharges of their field artillery sweep through clusters of gray. Charge after charge falters, but reforms and swings forward into the fray.
General Cleburne’s horse is shot out from under him. A cannon ball passes through his second mount. He proceeds on foot with his hat on his sword, waving and urging his men onward as he disappears into a smoky haze. His men follow.
*
The woman in black talked at length about the bravery of the slain. She spoke of the Carnton Plantation and how within hours of the beginning of the battle the floors of its mansion were covered with wounded and dead. Wounded spilled out of the plantation house and covered its gardens and grounds. She paused for a moment of silence before rejoining the other mourners. Some prayers were then said for those who had died there and for those who gathered to remember. The women in mourning placed a wreath under a stone memorial as a half dozen men in blue also stood at attention nearby.
Go to PART II...Fallen Cartridges, Fallen Men