# Do US flags belong on the graves of Confederate soldiers? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 8, 2016, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826 "2016-06-08T13:52:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/21 "2016-06-09T07:58:47Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > I don’t think your thinking is _wrong_ (at least that’s certainly where it started), I think it’s just a lot more thought than most people actually put in to the matter. Do people just stick flags on any grave now? As in, Great Aunt Bessie is buried in this churchyard, let’s stick a flag on her grave? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/22 "2016-06-09T10:26:05Z")
Had they won, _we’d all be eating grits for breakfast_. Have you stopped and thought about _that_?:mad: ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/23 "2016-06-09T10:34:44Z")
I’m not bothered about US flags being put on their graves. I do, however, feel that we shouldn’t name elementary schools after them. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/24 "2016-06-09T10:46:02Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > No. The state flag is a good idea, but the Confederacy stood for nothing _but_ slavery - certainly not states’ rights. Maybe, but that’s what they fought for. If you want to put flags on their graves to honor their service, put the flags on there of the country they died for, not the country they fought against. Putting American flags on their graves is just mocking them. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/25 "2016-06-09T11:01:28Z")
If they ever did anything honorable that we wish to honor them for, then honor them with the symbol of what they did. I’m told, for instance, that Lee served his nation well before his treason, and if we wish to honor that, then we should do so with an American flag. But there was no honor in the Southern treason. If that’s all a man did of note, fine, don’t punish him for the sake of restoring national unity, but absolutely don’t honor him, either. ---
**Author:** ![Beelzebubba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Beelzebubba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beelzebubba)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/26 "2016-06-09T11:18:52Z")
> [@The Great Sun Jester](#): > > Pretty straightforward question. I’m fairly strongly in the camp of option 1, option 2 if I’m feeling particularly generous. But as with any other time when I feel strongly about something, I suppose there’s something I’m not considering. So as usual, I admit up front to the likelihood of being generally ignorant about one thing or another and invite those with different opinions to give me some perspective. > 4) Yes. The US Civil War was more about a struggle to retain state-level liberties under a fairly loose federation, and resistance against moving toward a dominating republic. As such, it was a (ultimately unsuccessful) struggle to define the future of the USA as opposed to actually create a separate country. > > 1. Yes. Some other reason. My answer would be #4 but with additional information to explain my opinion (which may fall partially under #4 as well as #6). I think we all agree that many atrocities occurred during the Civil War and the reasons for the war were many and some despicable. BUT it was also a very different time and the ideals and beliefs of people were shaped far more by their family, peers and (to be honest) their ignorance. Ultimately, I believe that Confederate soldiers were fighting for what they believed was right. That, in my opinion, makes them Americans. Even as a fourth generation Georgian and a sixth generation Southerner, I’m eternally grateful that The Union won. But I still think that there were honorable men on both sides of the battle… ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/27 "2016-06-09T11:56:29Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > The whole business of putting little flags on graves is a distinctively American thing. I don’t think they do it in many (if any?) other countries. > > I’m not an American, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but my impression is that flags are generally only put on the graves of people who died serving in the armed forces (or possibly of people who served in the armed forces regardless of the circumstances of death?). It therefore marks a particular kind of service to the republic. > > If that’s the rationale, it seems to me to make no sense at all to mark the graves of Confederate servicemen with US flags. The US was the republic against which they were rebelling, and from which they sought to separate. You might as well mark the graves of Irish Republicans with the Union Jack. For that matter, you might as well mark the graves of those who fell in the American revolutionary war with the Union Jack. > > Obviously, I’m missing something, since this thread wouldn’t exist unless there were people who felt it _was_ appropriate to put the stars and stripes on rebel graves. Am I wrong in thinking that the practice generally signifies death in the service of the republic, or at least that it signifies service to the republic? Or is there a school of thought which holds that, in taking up arms against the republic and in the cause of separation from it, the rebels were somehow serving the republic? Memorial Day here is a sort of amalgamation of remembrances of The Dead, stemming from our civil war. It’s been broadened somewhat and for many is a day for the remembrance of just those who are generally dead, in service of country or otherwise. The Little flags I’m talking about, however, are specifically those at military cemeteries, or less ceremonial graves of servicemen. USA can be confusing even if you’ve lived here your whole life. It is at once a single place and 50 very distinctly different places. Racism, provincialism, faith, and generosity abound all over but in vastly different manifestations depending on where you are. Focusing on the civil war–150 years ago: how do you handle that? There is STILL animosity and only grudging acceptance of the outcome. The southern lands remain part of The Union, so they are inhabited by US Citizens. But there are horrifyingly vast numbers of graves belonging to people who fought to prevent that very situation. Do we consider them traitors, although their reality was not nearly so black & white? Or do we consider them Americans who fought for one manifestation of America but lost? And if so, how do we do that and call them “Americans nonetheless” without minimizing the war to the level of a championship game, the slaughter and rot of men on both sides and the causes represented by their flags? It’s a scar in a very real sense because it is a lasting effect of a division now closed, but inflexible and given to irritation when stressed. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/28 "2016-06-09T13:52:55Z")
1. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” I will not gainsay Abraham Lincoln, and neither should anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/29 "2016-06-09T14:43:45Z")
He just said, “Let’s end this war and put it behind us.” But by the same token, from the Confederate perspective, he spoke only for the Union. Did Jefferson Davis ever make a similar appeal? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/30 "2016-06-09T15:09:50Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > If you must compromise, place their state flags there. I like this idea. Not only does it remove the question of whether or not they were American soldiers, or “soldiers who were Americans” and any attached questions about the legitimacy of putting US flags on their graves, but it also reflects where most of their actual loyalties lay anyway, and nearly all of them (on both sides) served in state units, not Union or Confederate ones. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/31 "2016-06-09T19:06:30Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > 1. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” > I will not gainsay Abraham Lincoln, and neither should anyone else. And Lincoln bought a bullet for his troubles. Their officers should have been lined up against a wall and shot like the war criminals they were. The grunt soldiers deserved no veterans benefits and they deserve no American flags - now or ever. I wrote in another thread, all the rebel states should have been demoted to territorial status and made to re-earn their way back into the union. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/32 "2016-06-09T20:13:26Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Maybe a more [appropriate flag](http://static.conservativetribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Surrender-Flag-550x377.jpg)? They did quit using [this one](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150622171934-02-confederate-flag-super-169.jpg) because the other side thought they were offering surrender. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/33 "2016-06-10T02:03:04Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > 1. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” > I will not gainsay Abraham Lincoln, and neither should anyone else. I completely get this. What I’m questioning is whether planting Union flags on the graves of Confederate soldiers is an effective way of going about this, or even a rational way of attempting to. From my perspective, as a non-American, it looks more like a “Hah! In your face, loser!” kind of gesture to the dead. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/34 "2016-06-10T05:44:30Z")
I’m already against the next war, and I’m sure as Hell not going to hold a grudge for a war that happened before my grandfather was born. We have made peace with the peoples we fought from the nation’s birth to the Vietnamese, who were killing our guys when I was a teenager. All except the people of the long-dead Confederate States of America. It makes no sense to not forgive the rebels of long ago. The British forgave the American rebels, who were surely traitors to the crown. Why can’t you forgive the rebels of the misguided war in the 1860s? ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/35 "2016-06-10T06:19:45Z")
It is not a matter of “making nice with former foe” - it is desecrating the memory of those who lived and died as CSA supporters. Do we put French flags on the graves of SS troops killed in combat? They lived and died Nazis. At least leave them to their contemptible “Ideals”. If you were a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (look it up if you don’t know), would you want a Spanish flag on your grave? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/36 "2016-06-10T06:40:39Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > I’m already against the next war, and I’m sure as Hell not going to hold a grudge for a war that happened before my grandfather was born. We have made peace with the peoples we fought from the nation’s birth to the Vietnamese, who were killing our guys when I was a teenager. > > All except the people of the long-dead Confederate States of America. It makes no sense to not forgive the rebels of long ago. The British forgave the American rebels, who were surely traitors to the crown. Why can’t you forgive the rebels of the misguided war in the 1860s? It’s irrational virtue signaling. Irrational in the sense that they assign motives to these people that fought in the Civil War haphazardly. Without any sense of how a poor person fighting a war would think. They’ll link lengthy statements about why some of the states seceded and think that each and every soldier was willing to do die for some rich land owner’s right to own slaves. The truth is more complex than that. It’s not like the Union soldiers were all motivated by the noble intention of emancipation. Men had to be conscripted in the north and that got ugly. New York City wasn’t the most loyal of regions. But by condemning the South and its soldiers one can signal to others that you think the right things even if it’s intellectually inconsistent with the support of the American Revolution and ignores that it’s disingenuous to distill complex histories into a pithy sound bite. I’m glad the South lost for practical reasons. A United United States was going to be more viable and powerful than a large group of perpetually fighting mini nations like Europe of the time. Continuing to demonize the South to this day is counterproductive. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/37 "2016-06-10T08:24:24Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > I wrote in another thread, all the rebel states should have been demoted to territorial status and made to re-earn their way back into the union. They kind of were–“readmission” took until 1870–despite the paradoxical Union war doctrine that secession was impossible. > [@usedtobe](#): > > If you were a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (look it up if you don’t know), would you want a Spanish flag on your grave? Right. Presumably a Second Republic flag would be appropriate, if putting flags on war graves were a thing there. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/38 "2016-06-10T08:55:46Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Right. Presumably a Second Republic flag would be appropriate, if putting flags on war graves were a thing there. Not quite analogous, I think. The Spanish civil war wasn’t a war of secession, and the contesting sides had no arguments about what Spain was, or what it meant to be Spanish. Their dispute was about how Spain should be governed. If flags-on-graves were a thing in Spain, each side could reasonably lay claim to have been seeking to serve Spain and could use the current Spanish flag to signify that. (Happily, the current flag is not the flag that was employed by either side in the civil war.) As for international volunteers on both sides, they were presumably fighting not for Spain but for a wider cause, defined in terms of political ideology - socialism, anarchism, Christianity, whatever. If their graves were to be marked with flags, they’d presumably want flags which pointed to those causes, rather than to Spain. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/39 "2016-06-10T09:35:04Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > If flags-on-graves were a thing in Spain, each side could reasonably lay claim to have been seeking to serve Spain and could use the current Spanish flag to signify that. (Happily, the current flag is not the flag that was employed by either side in the civil war.) Well… my understanding is that Spanish Fascists did use bicolor flags, like the Bourbon monarchist ensign and the present state flag. Emblems were changed up. But I’m not versed in the subject, and I can’t speak to how either veterans of that war, or modern Spaniards, would view the symbolism. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826/40 "2016-06-10T15:08:12Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > They kind of were–“readmission” took until 1870–despite the paradoxical Union war doctrine that secession was impossible. > … I meant readmission on a case by case basis. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-flags-belong-on-the-graves-of-confederate-soldiers/756826.md?page=3)