Confederate Flags Are Sought For Lee, Jackson Ceremonies

BALTIMORE, April 28 – (AP) – There was an ad in the papers this

morning for Confederate battle flags.

Baltimore doesn’t necessarily intend to take up arms for another War Between the States, flags have anything to do nor does the rush for Confederate with a Southern political revolt. “The Monument City” is just getting ready to dedicate another statue.

The new one is an heroic bronze job, of Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

It depicts their parting on the eve of the battle of Chancellorsville, in which the South won an important victory and Genera Jackson was shot by his own troops.

The dedication is Saturday eighty-fifth anniversary of the battle.

Baltimore is girding for the ceremonies with a right good will.

Half and Half

Maryland was one of those half. slave, half-free border States during the conflict of the ’60’s. The Mason and Dixon line forms her northern border. She never seceded, but Baltimore and much of the State faced and faces south.

Historians digging up memorabilia for Saturday’s occasion have resurrected two at least half-hearted claims:

That the first Confederate battle flags were made here.

That the first shots after the formal declaration of hostilities were fired here.

The sisters Hety and Jennie Cary made the first flags from evening dresses and petticoats, they say. The Confederate States never adopted a flag, however. At least five versions survive and a host of people have claimed credit for designing the first ones.

Sumter Loses Technically

As for the shots—they were fired in a skirmish at a railroad station here. Some hot-headed Southern sympathizers opened up on a small detachment of Union troops en route to Washington. Those who like to refer to them as the “first shots” have an argument which neatly rules out the battle of Fort Sumter on a technicality.

It is not to buttress these claims that Baltimore is dedicating the the statue of Generals Lee and Jackson.

The donor accompanied his $100,000 with the stipulation that he wanted to memorialize the generals not as military geniuses but as Christian gentlemen-because of their religious zeal and the spiritual influence they had.

Cadets from Virginia Military Academy, the VMI band, the Governors of Virginia and Maryland, and units of the Maryland National Guard and the Second Army will help dedicate the monument.

Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman, editor of The Richmond News Leader and outstanding biographer of Lee, will make the main speech.

The flag business continues to enjoy a mild boom. Confederate flags have been hard to get for several years, but recently they’ve been coming through in better supply— from New Jersey.

One dealer said:

“Most of them are bought by Southern boys in Northern universities. We send lots of them to Harvard and Yale.”