Sunday letters: Real Confederates wouldn’t fly defeated flag

In an editorial in Charleston’s News and Courier of Nov. 3, 1887, the editor, himself a Confederate veteran, wrote that the Confederate flag should not be displayed “at what is intended to be a national celebration or a state celebration.”

“Love it as we may,” he wrote, “it is out of place save in our memories, in our museums, at our strictly Confederate reunions, and, always in our heart of hearts. No Confederate soldier worthy of this name is likely to dissent from this. The howl will come, if at all, from those who trade upon ‘the gray’ and they never wore it in battle.”

Columbia

This story was originally published July 11, 2015 at 7:18 PM.