History could have been rewritten this week in East Tennessee.
On Monday, the Greene County Commission voted 20-1 against hoisting the Confederate battle flag at the local courthouse.
In the midst of national conversations this summer about the Confederate flag’s place in modern society, it is surprising yet frustrating to see people claim that the flag should be flown as a symbol of our region’s culture and history.
All it takes is a drive through Knoxville or Pigeon Forge to see the Confederate flag on the back of pickup trucks, front porches and storefront windows, mostly flown by people who will say that the flag symbolizes Southern heritage and our state’s history — rather than a century’s worth of hate.
What some people may not know is that Tennessee did not join the Confederacy easily. We were the last state to leave the Union and the first to return. It took two elections for our residents to decide to join the Confederacy, and even then, our loyalty was not clearly defined, as indicated by our substantial contributions in volunteer soldiers to both sides and strong support for the Union in East Tennessee specifically.
In fact, Knoxville, and what would later become the University of Tennessee, was specifically thanked by the federal government after the war for our loyalty to the Union.
As could be expected when a university is occupied by two armies, East Tennessee University (we did not become the University of Tennessee until 1879) sustained extensive property damage, in particular from Union troops, during the war.
The damage to campus, which included the complete destruction of one building, irreparable damage to several others and the loss of much of the landscaping to make room for bulwarks, was widespread and expensive.
After the war, the Board of Trustees submitted a bill to the U.S. government, asking for compensation to the tune of $18,500 to rebuild campus. Today, such a project could reasonably cost between $2.5 million and $5.2 million.
After years of haggling over the amount, Congress passed a bill to repay the university in 1873 and in 1874 its second draft was signed by President Ulysses S. Grant.
To avoid having to pay everyone damaged from the war, which Grant argued would bankrupt the Treasury, the President had Congress reword the school’s compensation package so that the money would be a “donation,” rather than an itemized bill, while maintaining his strong support and thanks to East Tennessee.
Grant was enthusiastic in his assistance to the university, specifically citing Knoxville residents’ sacrifice for the Union and “loyalty of the people of the section in which the university is located, under circumstances of personal danger and trials.”
For a region that today must remember its Confederate pride and history, East Tennessee did something extraordinary to win such favor from Washington during Reconstruction, and from a former Union general no less.
However, this is not to say that all East Tennessee residents during the war were Unionists. Rev. Thomas W. Humes, whom was elected university president in July 1865, was shot by a secessionist while leading prayer, and later forced to leave the church for supporting the Union. While Humes did not die from his assault, it did result in him using a cane the rest of his life.
However, any contention that Tennessee, and East Tennessee specifically, wholeheartedly supported the Confederacy would be incorrect.
There are many important issues that divide our state, but whether or not to fly the Confederate battle flag in public should not be one of them. Flying the flag in the name of our Civil War history reflects a lack of knowledge about not just the causes of the war, but East Tennessee’s role in it.
We all have better things to do than be upset over a Confederate flag waving in someone else’s front porch, but instead of worrying about how to take it down, we should instead celebrate those East Tennesseans that loved our state and our country enough to fight for the Union.
Celebrating the flag of a treasonous and failed state is a poor way to remember the Civil War. Of course the flag is part of history and should be preserved, but if we, as a region, are to celebrate anything, let it be the men and women that fought on the right side of history, the ones that stood up to the divisive forces of hatred and bigotry.
After all, there’s a difference between remembering history and celebrating it. For obvious reasons, we do not celebrate the Japanese internment camps we created in World War II, but we do remember and acknowledge what we did to our own citizens.
In the same way, we can remember the Confederacy without celebrating the symbols of those that divided and nearly destroyed our nation. Flying the Confederate flag in public suggests that the two sides are equally worthy of celebration. They are not.
Confining symbols of the Confederacy to monuments and exhibits is not erasing from history the men that fought for South. Rather, by keeping the Confederate battle flag in its proper historical context, we are proving to ourselves that the idea at the heart of the Civil War, that blacks are not equal to whites, is also where it belongs: in a museum.
McCord Pagan is a fifth-year senior in journalism and electronic media. He can be reached at [email protected].
