Are their battle flags not also part of "Southern Heritage"?

[theHandpuppet]

I'm posting this separately from two other threads discussing the CSA battle flags and the neoconfederacy because whenever the flying of the Confederate Battle Flag is discussed, invariably the defense is that the flag is representative of Southern heritage. But there is another side to "Southern heritage" that is somehow excluded in that romaticized memorial, and that is the heritage of some four million Southern slaves and the many thousands of Southern black men who bravely served in regiments of the United States Colored Troops, some winning the nation's highest honor, The Congressional Medal of Honor.

So while Lincoln is burned in effigy at a modern day celebration in Columbia, SC (see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=533934 ) and the argument continues over the flying of the battle flag of the CSA (see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=531450&mesg_id=531450 ), I would like to pay tribute to those brave men of the USCT, particularly those USCT from the state of South Carolina. Only when the battle flags fof the USCT fly over Southern statehouses will I say that such tributes to "southern heritage" have been satisfied. I didn't want this post to get lost at the end of someone else's long threads, for those of you unfamiliar with the history of southern black men who served with the USCT.

United States Colored Troops of South Carolina
http://www.blackcamisards.com/sc-usct/index.html
(excerpt)
The history of the USCT was brief yet illustrative, with little more than two years of service before the War officially ended. By the time the War ran its course, approximately 160 regiments and 10 batteries of light artillery comprising nearly 200,000 ex-slaves and freedmen had enlisted and served in USCT tactical units.

Of the colored soldiers who joined the Union effort, more than 5,000 were recruited from the state of South Carolina, comprising the enlisted ranks of six infantry regiments ( 21st | 33rd | 34th | 103rd | 104th and 128th ) and one artillery battery ( Battery "G", 2nd Light Artillery Regiment). The 105th Infantry Regiment did not completely formed before the end of the war and was quickly disbanded.

Perhaps no regiment was more symbolic of the participation and contribution of African Americans to the War effort than the 1st South Carolina Colored Infantry, a contingent of slaves from the harsh, back- breaking farms of the coastal Low Country regions of the state. South Carolina was a state that was steeped in the practice of slavery, whose very existence and wherewithal were built on and dependent upon one man's involuntary servitude to another. Indeed, South Carolina, perhaps more so than the other southern states, was synonymous with the slave trade, the plantation system and the inequality of the races. From Columbia to Charleston to Hilton Head, South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union, was the essence of Dixie.

First US Flag Over Charleston raised by USCT troops

http://history-sites.com/mb/cw/cwflags/index.cgi?noframes;read=3302
(excerpt)
"A great ovation was given to Gen. U.S. Grant...the torn, tattered and faded battle flag carried by D. C. Vestal, as color-bearer of Phil Sheridan Post, excited much comment, and its history would not be out of place here. It belonged in 1864 to the Twenty-first Regiment, South Carolina Colored Volunteers, commanded by Col. A. G. Bennett, afterwards of San Jose, and was the first Union flag raised in Charleston after that city's surrender to and occupation by the Union forces. Five color-bearers were shot down while carrying it, and every hole in it was made by a Confederate bullet."

http://history-sites.com/mb/cw/cwflags/index.cgi?noframes;read=3311
(excerpt -- bolding mine)
Contact the Charleston Museum on Meeting Street, if they do not have anything, they should be able to direct you in the right direction. ( 843-722-2996)

You are correct on the US flag at the Relic Room, its a fragment of the 2nd US S.C. Regiment (African Descent)
John Bigham of the Relic Room does not have information on the flag of the 21st USCT.

The 21st USCT was made up of the 3rd & 4th (US) South Carolina Regiments (African Descent). The 3rd & 4th never did fully organize so they most likely did not receive a stand of flags until the 21st was organized.

I heard from West Point and the flag is not there nor is it on the list of the 54 USCT flags destroyed in 1920, so it may still be out there in California some place.

Are their battle flags not part of "Southern Heritage" too?

Number of USCT by state (listing southern states and border "neutral" states only for this discussion)

Alabama 4,969
Arkansas 5,526
Florida 1,044
Georgia 3,486
Kentucky 23,703
Louisiana 24,502
Maryland 8,718
Mississippi 17,869
North Carolina 5,035
South Carolina 5,462
Tennessee 20,133
Texas 47
Virginia 5,723

How about flying some of these battle flags as part of a "Southern Heritage" celebration? Do their statues not belong in the town square, are their flags not fit to fly over statehouses?

Author's note: Study of USCT history has been a particular interest of mine. I can post additional links here for anyone interested, or you can simply do a Google search for "USCT".

[theHandpuppet]

1. And lest we forget another part of Southern Heritage

The other white face of Southern heritage: Southern Unionists!

http://www.1stalabamacavalryusv.com/loyalist.asp
http://www.aotc.net/Antithomasspin.htm
http://www.rootsweb.com/~arcivwar/loyal.htm
http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress/Books/Spring2004/books/Storey_Loyalty_Loss.html
http://www.uark.edu/~uaprinfo/titles/sp06/haynes_narrative.html

Excerpt from http://www.bohemianbrigade.com/page12.html
"The most obvious example of support for the Union and disdain for the Confederacy was the enlistment of many Southerners in the Federal Army. Again, only recently has much attention been paid by historians to the large numbers of Southerners (both black and white) who added their numbers to the Union rather than the Confederacy. These "anti-Confederate Southerners," as one historian has called them, contributed 300,000 white and 150,000 black troops to the Union Army, more than replacing all battle losses suffered by the Union during the course of the war, and more importantly, they could have replaced the Confederate losses as well. It seems to be the consensus of historians that the Confederate Army contained a total of 900,000 men during the entire course of the war. Thus the number of Southerners who fought for the Union would have added another 50 percent to the numbers of the Confederacy had they fought for the other side. Unionist units came from every single border slave state and from every state in the Confederacy with the single exception of South Carolina, which did contribute individuals to other Southern Unionist units."

I guess I'll keep contributing to my own thread since these nearly invisible and oft-forgotten aspects of "southern heritage" don't seem to draw much comment compared to the arguments over flying the CSA battle flag as part of "southern heritage".