Gillis Harp and P.C. Kemeny: That Confederate flag would have offended your great-great-grandfather

The U.S. Marine Corps decided recently to ban public displays of the Confederate battle flag. The generals explained that they took this strong action because the flag has “all too often been co-opted by violent extremist and practice groups whose divisive beliefs have no place in our Corps.”

The same could be said for citizens living in Western Pennsylvania who wear sweatshirts emblazoned with the Confederate battle flag and a caption reading, “If This Flag Offends You, You Need a History Lesson!” It strikes us as pretty ironic that here in Western Pennsylvania, some citizens would venerate the Confederacy.

As the nation celebrates Flag Day on June 14, perhaps Pennsylvanians need a brief history lesson of the price our ancestors paid to defeat that Confederate flag and preserve the Union.

Although the Republican Party now finds its strength in Old Dixie, when the party of Lincoln was formed, Western Pennsylvanians were among its most enthusiastic supporters. When the newly created party nominated its first presidential ticket in 1856, candidate John C. Fremont won only 33% of the national vote. But the citizens of Mercer County cast fully 57% of their ballots for Fremont — the candidate pledged to oppose the further expansion of slavery into the territories.

In 1860, Western Pennsylvanians were among the strongest supporters of Abraham Lincoln. At the party’s national convention, Pennsylvania delegates cast 52 out of their 54 votes for Lincoln; many Pittsburghers celebrated Honest Abe’s nomination by firing cannons from Boyd’s Hill.

Nor did Western Pennsylvanians change their voting habits after Appomattox. Vets continued to “vote the way they shot” well after the war. Former Union soldiers joined the main veterans’ organization called the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), virtually an arm of the Republican Party in some parts of the North. Visit a local cemetery sometime and you’ll be struck by the number of metal GAR badges adorning the graves. Nor were most citizens of Mercer County prepared to just let bygones be bygones when the war ended. As the editors of the Mercer Whig & Dispatch newspaper declared: “Treason is the natural fruit of the doctrine of State Rights as expounded by the traitors of the South and the leaders of the Democratic Party North. It was the school in which the traitorous elements of the South were shaped for the fearful war which was launched against the Nation’s life.”

Not only did many Pennsylvanians oppose secession on political grounds, but they also viewed slavery as the reason for what they called the Great Rebellion. Many Western Pennsylvanians embraced Lincoln’s anti-slavery views for both political and religious reasons. These convictions had been fermenting for decades. At the 1835 organization of an abolitionist society in Mercer County, for instance, supporters passed a resolution that declared slavery “a gross violation of the fundamental principles of our government, and incompatible with the laws of God and the requirements of the Gospel.”

These sentiments reached a fever pitch as one Southern state after another seceded from the Union in the aftermath of Lincoln’s election. At a rally held at the Mercer County Court House in January 1861, the Rev. W.T. McAdam, pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Mercer, whose manse was a stop on the Underground Railroad, declared, “It is no time for unholy compromises. Sure that we are right, we should stand as inflexible as justice, and trust the issue to Almighty God.”

Such convictions led many Pennsylvanians to make the ultimate sacrifice to abolish slavery and to preserve the Union. More than 2 million served in the Union Army, including more than 400,000 from Pennsylvania. Over 33,000 Pennsylvanians were listed among the Union casualties from the war.

Nowhere was that sacrifice more evident than when Pennsylvanian regiments rushed to the small hamlet of Gettysburg on July 1. These Union troops saw themselves defending the North from an invading army. One officer said as much as he led the 154th Pennsylvania Regiment into battle. “Don’t forget today that you are fighting in your own State,” he shouted in encouragement, “and give them the best you have.”

The mixture of Napoleonic military tactics with modern weapons produced horrific carnage. Although no state’s soldiers escaped the brutality, with more than 51,000 casualties in the three-day battle, Pennsylvania volunteer regiments suffered terrible loses. When the 100th Pennsylvania Regiment arrived at Gettysburg, it experienced a “whirling vortex” of death, as one observer described it. More than half of the regiment was killed or wounded stopping a Confederate advance. The 141st Pennsylvania suffered even worse casualties, losing more than 75% of the regiment.

What would the ancestors of these modern neo-Confederates think of their descendants? Surely they would be dismayed by their affiliation with secession and slavery.

Wearing the Confederate flag is hardly an appropriate way for Pennsylvanians to honor their sacrifice. In light of our past, it isn’t just ironic — it’s historically ill-informed.

Gillis Harp is a history professor and P.C. Kemeny a religion and humanities professor at Grove City College.