Confederate battle flag, at long last, yields to the reality of history

So in the wake of a horrendous crime of racial hatred in a Charleston church, we're finally rolling up the battle banners of a rebellion soaked in the poison of white supremacy.

I wish to heaven that this country could be slapped sober without atrocity and heartbreak, but here we are. Yet again.

Everywhere you looked this past week, the Confederate battle flag was disappearing from view or was headed for mothballs, from South Carolina and Virginia to Alabama and Mississippi to the aisles of Wal-Mart. Even northern governors, including Gov. Terry Branstad, were fielding questions about the flag.

On Monday, Branstad sidestepped the issue of whether South Carolina should remove the flag from its Statehouse grounds, saying the murder of nine parishioners at a historic black church is a 'terrible tragedy,” but also that the flag is a 'very emotional and historic issue.”

'Consequently, I don't think I, as the governor of Iowa, should be telling another state what they should do with their state capitol,” Branstad said.

By Thursday, after South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and others announced support for removing the flag, the governor's office expanded its thoughts on the issue.

'Gov. Branstad is always interested in promoting Iowa's history of being very welcoming and inclusive to those of diverse backgrounds. He respects the decision by states like Alabama and South Carolina to work to remove what some see as a symbol of hatred from public spaces and buildings,” Branstad's spokesman Jimmy Centers told me in an email.

'Gov. Branstad supports the decisions made by Gov. Haley and Gov. Bentley regarding the flag,” Centers said.

Better, but still too cautious. I wish he had said something more like this:

'Well, you know, more than 75,000 Iowans served the Union in the Civil War, back at a time when the state's population was only 600,000. More than 12,000 died, either of wounds or horrible diseases. More than 500 died in prisons. More than 8,000 returned home with wounds. A lot of people probably don't know that Iowa raised a black infantry unit when the state's black population was probably no more than 1,000. Remarkable.

'Those were enormous sacrifices we made to win a conflict sparked by the Confederacy's demand that it be allowed to buy, sell and own humans as property. The flag is a symbol of the wretched ideas that caused the war and that continue to haunt our nation to this day. It can't be tossed into the dust bin fast enough.”

I know, wordy.

Branstad's right to mention Iowa's history. There was a time when Iowans were unafraid to get involved in South Carolina's affairs.

In fact, Iowa soldiers under the command of Gen. Sherman were the first to march in and capture South Carolina's capital city, Columbia, on Feb. 17, 1865. That's where South Carolina became the first state to leave the union in December 1860.

There is some dispute about which Iowa unit rode into the city, pulled down South Carolina's palmetto flag and hoisted Old glory over the old capital building. Some say it was Col. George Stone and Iowa troops under his command who entered the city first and hoisted the colors. But then there's an account, put in print in 1911, by Major H.C. McArthur, insisting it was a small group of men from a different unit that reached the capitol first.

I'm not here to settle it, but McArthur's story is far better.

According to his account, about 30 Iowa troops worked for hours to patch up an 'old rickety, leaky flat ferryboat” hoping to cross the Congaree River. As they worked, they took fire from rebel pickets on the other bank, with several Iowans wounded and one killed.

Eventually, 21 of them, including McArthur, took the ferry across, expecting 'hot work” under fire. But the fire didn't come, and they made it to the other side. Rushing up the embankment, McArthur said they were 'ready for most any kind of reception.” But, apparently, the enemy had skedaddled.

So they made it to a road, where they found a guy with a horse and buggy, 'dumping him and effects into the street.”

'Major Goodrell, and the color bearer, with the flag banner, and a gun, jumped into the buggy. Col. Kennedy and myself, back to back, sat on the cross bar over the back spring and literally hung on,” McArthur wrote.

From there, the buggy, under whip, dashed into Columbia toward the capitol. At one point, they came upon a group of Confederate cavalrymen, but the Iowans were going too fast to stop. 'They fired, overshot us, whirled and were galloping away frantically.”

When they got to the old Statehouse, a janitor led them to the garret, where they hoisted the colors. For many tense moments, they feared being on the wrong side of a developing battle, with 'death or capture” likely. Instead, union forces marched in against little resistance.

That night, fires consumed much of Columbia. McArthur claims the blazes were a result of Confederates who set fire to cotton stores, with smoldering fires eventually whipped by high winds. Others, to this day, contend it was Sherman's men who burned the city.

Iowa still owns the flag taken down that day. South Carolina has wanted it back for decades, but were only allowed to have it on loan from 1990 to 2002.

Iowa's war history is full of compelling stories. Our history books tell us they ended in a Union victory. But, unfortunately, in reality, the Civil War never really ended.

For so, so long in this country, we've provided cultural cover to the notion that, really, the Confederacy was some grand 'Lost Cause,” a romantic crusade to save the rich red earth of Tera from the brutish Yankee invaders and their industrialized hordes, a courageous stand for states' rights against federal tyranny.

It was about anything other than what it was really about. It was about slavery. That rich red earth was worked by slaves. The noble right sought by those seceding states was to keep whites supreme and blacks subservient.

Instead of a shot of hard truth, we've swallowed many a julep cup of whitewash, served up by the bucket whenever civil rights, voting rights and the march toward racial equality had to be beaten back. And in the background, always, was that battle flag.

Of course, not everyone who wore it, displayed it, stuck it on their bumper or hoisted over their capitol grounds is a hateful white supremacist. But no amount of rationalizations, homages to 'heritage” and good intentions can change what it really means.

Anyone willing to look history square in the eye knows what it means. Black Americans know it. Dylann Roof knew it when he posed with the flag in one hand and a gun in the other, like some Confederate portrait from an attic we should have locked tight long ago. And now, at long last, cold reality is catching on. The flag is coming down. Statues of Confederate leaders suddenly are standing on very shaky plinths. It might all seem like progress moving at light speed if it hadn't taken 150 years to get to a point where truth can finally march on.

l Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com