Further Thoughts on the Confederate Flag(s)

Interesting notes on the history of the flags of the Confederacy, according to Wikipedia.

One of the first acts of the Provisional Confederate Congress was to create the “Committee on the Flag and Seal”, chaired by William Porcher Miles of South Carolina. The committee asked the public to submit thoughts and ideas on the topic and was, as historian John M. Coski puts it, “overwhelmed by requests not to abandon the ‘old flag’ of the United States.”

Read more.  My takeaways (subject to the obligatory caveats about trusting Wikipedia):

Happy Independence Day!

In honor of the Founding Fathers and our other forbears, consider Calvin Coolidge’s “Speech on the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence”.

Although a century and a half measured in comparison with the length of human experience is but a short time, yet measured in the life of governments and nations it ranks as a very respectable period. Certainly enough time has elapsed to demonstrate with a great deal of thoroughness the value of our institutions and their dependability as rules for the regulation of human conduct and the advancement of civilization. . . .

Memorial Day

To mark Memorial Day, Mark Steyn reflects on the interesting history of the Civil War song “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”.  (Note that link will expire.)

And somehow this combination — an improvised camp-meeting chorus with an in-joke verse about a Boston Scotsman — became the most popular marching song of the Union forces, the one bellowed out as Sherman’s men marched through Georgia in 1864.

Wikipedia has the lyrics.

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.