Battle flag at center of Supreme Court free speech case

Texas commemorates the Confederacy in many ways, from an annual celebration of Confederate Heroes Day each January to monuments on the grounds of the state Capitol in Austin. Among the memorials is one that has stood for more than a century, bearing an image of the Confederate battle flag etched in marble.

But you're out of luck if you want to put that flag on your license plate. Texas says that would be offensive.

At almost every battle during the Civil War the Texans flew the banner of the Lone Star State fighting against the Union.

Well, no and yes. Texans preferred a "Lone Star" version of every flag pattern flown in Texas or afield. But rather than carry the Texas flag, which was indeed broken out and displayed during the "Secession period" (just after leaving the Union), Texans made Texas versions of official Confederate patterns. Particularly popular was the "Lone Star and Bars", which was a Confederate First National with a single huge white star (as depicted in the Antietam reenactment of the film Glory), or alternatively with a large white star in a circlet of six, or 12, or eight smaller stars, and sometimes with four red stars in the corners of the union, for the Four Civilized Tribes of the Indian Nation after they declared war on the United States.

Texas regimentals carried later on tended toward what was later called a "Texas pattern" of the Confederate Battle Flag, which was shown with or without white fimbriations and sometimes, in the "Taylor pattern" and the Polk divisional flag, with colors reversed. (The "Polk Battle Flag" was also different in being based on the Cross of St George, upright and showing a red cross surrounded by white fimbriations). Texans fought under all these flags and the ANV square version as well, which was occasionally issued to a Texas regiment to replace a shot-up homespun original. Two regimental "Texas pattern" flags were supposedly cut, at least in part, from the silk wedding dress of Texas Senator Louis Wigfall's wife and were called "Mrs. Wigfall's wedding dress" flags. The flags were carried by the First and Fourth Texas Infantry, and the Senator's daughter Louise was also named Fille de Regiment by John Bell Hood himself, commander of the Texas Brigade. His letter to Miss Louise informing her of the honor is still extant, as is at least one of the flags.

Reminds me of this:
“His unchangeable sweetness, the absence of all rancour, of all bitterness of feeling so natural to the vanquished, raised him high above the prejudices and hatreds of the day, and exhibited him, to all who came, as a living example of Christian charity. Although he wished everybody to remain faithful to the old traditions of the South in all that appertained to honour, virtue, and hospitality, yet he set himself to work to root up those animosities, those provincial rivalries, which led only to ruin.

To a mother, who brought him her two sons, loudly expressing her hatred of the North, he said, “ Madam, don’t bring up your sons to detest the United States Government. Recollect that we form but one country, now. Abandon all these local animosities, and make your sons Americans.”

Here again is a charming incident, which will well illustrate his goodness : One of his friends, on passing by Lee’s garden-gate, found him conversing with a man poorly clad, to whom he had just given something, and who appeared exceedingly happy at the general’s courteous welcome. Presently the man saluted him and withdrew. “ That is one of our old soldiers in want,” explained Lee. Naturally enough the friend thought he meant some Confederate veteran, when Lee, lowering his voice, added : “ He was not on our side, but that doesn’t signify.”
From The Life and Campaigns of General Lee
by Edward Lee Childe

It was yankee aggression and what they did to our homes and land is unforgivable.

"Yet, if God wills that [the war] continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'"-- Abraham Lincoln

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