The American Standard Bearer

Last Thursday, I wrote about an American flag with just one star. The flag originally featured 34 stars and had been used to drape the casket of a Tennessee man during the Civil War by the Confederate Soldiers who hanged him. His wife removed all but one of the stars to give her husbands compatriots to remember him by, hence, an American flag with only one star.

In this week’s news, there’s a story about another 34 star American flag that also figures prominently in Tennessee Civil War history.

In 1863, Nathan Bedford Forrest left Columbia, Tennessee with a contingent of Confederate cavalry headed for northern Alabama intent on engaging the Union Army. Shortly after Forrest’s departure, word spread that Union soldiers had been spotted approaching Columbia.

A generous woman by the name of Antoinette Polk had donated the use of her home outside of town, Ashwood Hall, for the recovery of wounded Confederate soldiers. Hearing of the Union advance, Antoinette hopped on a horse and sped out of town towards Ashwood Hall to warn the Soldiers. She was soon spotted by Union troops who pursued her. Legend has it that they got so close that one of them was able to pluck a feather out of her hat.

However, she was able to escape and she made it to Ashwood Hall in time to save the Confederates. Upon his return, after routing the Union forces, Forrest heard of Polk’s bravery and presented her with a 34 star American flag he had captured in battle. Unfortunately for Polk, the Union soldiers burned Ashwood Hall to the ground.

Now without a home, and with few prospects at the end of the war, Polk took her American flag and headed off to France where she met and married the Baron de Charette. The Baron’s estate included a chapel and that’s where Antoinette hung her flag and that’s were it remained until a granddaughter married an American, taking the old American flag back to the states with her.

Then in the late 1990’s, a local artist by the name of Lisa Pardon along with the county archivist, Bob Duncan were able to track down Polk’s granddaughter who, surprisingly enough, still had the flag. She happily has donated it to Maury County and resoration is underway.

This most recent addition to the list of famous American flags has been dubbed, appropriately enough, the Antoinette Polk Flag.   

Yesterday, I wrote about Hillary Clinton’s newfound zeal for protecting the American flag. I also wrote that it is only a hollow political ploy to paint herself as an American flag-loving conservative to those voters gullible enough to believe her in the first place.

Today, American Legion National Commander Thomas L. Bock spoke out about Clinton’s involvement. He referred to her support of Utah Senator Bob Bennett’s bill to ban the desecration of American flags as  "a long road to a dead end."

The American Legion is the nation’s largest veteran’s organization with over 2.7 million members and plenty of political clout. Having lead the fight to pass a flag protection amendment, they know as well as anyone the difference between another law banning flag desecration and a constitutional amendment protecting the American flag.

Within a year after the Supreme Court ruled that burning American flags amounted to free speech in the notorious 1989 Texas vs. Johnson case, Congress passed the Flag Protection Act. Less than a year after the Flag Protection Act was signed into law, the Supreme Court struck it down in Eichman vs. the United States.

In reference to the Bennett/Clinton bill, Bock says, "Through the sixteen years that flag desecration has been legal, no simple statue has withstood judicial review. The truth is, and virtually everyone on Capitol Hill knows, a constitutional amendment that first lays the groundwork for a law is the only means to legally protect the flag."

If Clinton expects to ride this horse to victory, she’s going to have to do battle with some pretty strong adversaries.

It’s not even 2006 but Hillary Clinton has been signaling her run for the White House for quite some time. In her latest attempt to pander to conservatives, she has thrown her support behind a bill to outlaw desecration of American flags.

According to an article in today’s New York Post, Clinton has positioned herself as the co-sponsor of Utah Senator Bob Bennett’s bill that would make it illegal to desecrate an American flag. The apparent logic behind this move by Clinton is that since Bennett is a Republican, her support should play well with conservatives in the red states.

But Bennett’s bill is really just a hollow gesture designed to play against a bill sponsored by his fellow Utah senator, Orrin Hatch. Hatch is the driving force behind an amendment to the Constitution that would allow states to ban the desecration of the American flag if they should so desire. The flag desecration amendment has already passed the House and will eventually be voted on by the Senate.

The problem with the Bennett/Clinton bill is that it has no teeth and both Bennett and Clinton know it. The Supreme Court has twice since 1989 ruled that burning the American flag is protected by the free speech clause of the First Amendment. If this bill were to pass in lieu of the flag amendment, it would soon be challenged and struck down.

Bennett and Clinton and all the other politicians who feign a conservative stance to the flag burning issue by hithching themselves to this star may well view it as a relatively risk-free way to pander to conservatives. They can gain the media coverage they need to show conservatives they support the symbol of freedom, the American flag, while whispering to liberals that this effectively blocks a Constitutional amendment and will be struck down in the courts.

The danger for Clinton is that it could backfire. She needs the support of the 20-30% of voters who are usually up for grabs in a Presedential race and for many of them, the main issue is credibility. Since the Clinton’s already suffer from a credibility gap, it’s issues like these that could spell trouble.

As the competition between these two bills heats up, if the amendment supporters are able to clearly convince the American people that the Bennett/Clinton bill will never protect the American flag because it will be struck down by the courts, it very well may paint Clinton as a calculating and cynical politician.

For anyone living within driving distance of Baltimore, Maryland, I’ve found a wonderful way to spend a Saturday this holiday season, or even a week day if you can swing it.

The Flag House & Star-Spangled Banner Museum is located in Baltimore’s Little Italy section and includes the house where Mary Pickersgill lived when she and her daughter were commissioned to sew the large American flag for Fort McHenry. At the time, the 15-star flag was the largest American flag yet made. It measures 30′ x 42′ and is still in existence. The actual flag is housed at the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

The story goes that sometime after Mary Pickersgill, along with her mother Rebecca Young and her daughter Caroline, set up their flag-making shop at Pratt and Albemarle Streets in Baltimore, they were selected by Commodore Barney and General Stricker to make the immense American flag for Fort McHenry. At least in part, they were chosen because Rebecca Young was the woman who had made the first Grand Union flag for General Washington. The Grand Union flag is generally regarded among historians as being the true "first American flag."

The flag was so large that there was not a room large enough in their house to lay it out, so they were able to use the floor space of a nearby brewery to assemble the flag.

We sing about this great American flag and it’s significance in the decisive battle of Baltimore Harbor in our National Anthem, yet few people really know the whole story of this wonderful flag and it’s role in one of the defining moments of American history.

If you can make it, it will be worth your time and you can even plan to have dinner at one of the fine restaurants in Little Italy. And if you can make it there on Saturday, December 10th, there will be a special afternoon of holiday activities ala 1813 style for the whole family. In addition to all that, there will be a display of World War II era flags, most of which were made at the Navy’s Mare Island Shipyard in California.

For more about this excellent way to spend a Saturday, visit The Flag House Museum.

While searching for the latest stories about American flags this morning, I came upon one not about American flags, but about American Airlines and it really caught my attention.

I’m not someone who generally subscribes to conspiracy theories. I view them as paranoid reactions to complicated situations where reasonable explanations almost always exist. But the official explanation for the following news item smells.

Shortly after takeoff from Los Angeles International Airport last Wednesday,  the pilot of American Airlines flight 621 radioed the tower to report that a missle had been fired at the plane and missed. The flight was out over water at the time the pilot reported seeing a smoke trail shoot pass the cockpit.

The FBI spent the weekend investigating the incident, and what was their expert assesment? Why, it must have been a bottle rocket! How silly is that. As a kid, my brothers and I exploded enough fireworks to take down a medium size building and I can definitively tell you that a bottle rocket just doesn’t go that high. In fact, if you were at the end of the runway when a plane was taking off overhead, you couldn’t reach it with a bottle rocket.

This all sounds vaguely reminiscent of the less than satisfying official conclusion of the TWA flight 800 investigation. To recap: TWA flight 800 took off from New York’s JFK airport at sunset on July 17th, 1996 and exploded 11 minutes later just off shore of Center Moriches, Long Island.

From the start, that investigation was hampered by official obsfucation. For example, well over 150 eyewitnesses came forward to report seeing a bright light streaking toward the plane and they witnessed this from a wide range of locations. Their reports were perfectly consistent with the path a  shoulder-fired missle would take. On top of that, other pilots in the area also reported the same bright object moments before flight 800 exploded.

A few days later, ABC World News Sunday interviewed Lou Desyron, one of the witnesses, "We saw what appeared to be a flare going straight up. As a matter of fact, we thought it was from a boat. It was a bright reddish-orange color. …once it went into flames, I knew that wasn’t a flare."

And a few days after that The Washington Times had this to say, "Several witnesses…saw a bright, flare-like object streaking toward the jumbo jet seconds before it blew up. ABC News said yesterday that the investigators had more then 100 eyewitness accounts supporting the [ missile ] theory."

Then there was the problem of the discovery of a high explosive, PETN, that was found on plane seats that had been recovered from the ocean floor. The residue was found on approximately 30 seats, a relatively large section of the plane. There were reports that the plane had been used in a training exercise for bomb-sniffing dogs in which trace amounts of PETN might have ended up on the seats, but it was later found that it was another plane that had been used.

Was there a cover-up behind the investigation of TWA flight 800? I am certainly not qualified to answer that question but I know that the pilot of American flight 621 out of LAX last week wasn’t looking at a bottle rocket.

Believe it or not, there exists an American flag with only one star. It was recently donated to the East Tennessee Historical Society and it is part of a facinating bit of history.

A little known fact about the Civil War is that the people of eastern Tennessee were predominantly Unionists, not Confederates. Contrary to the current popular misconception, the Civil War got started over an economic chasm that had developed between the industrialized North and the agrarian South.

The folks in eastern Tennessee had no ties to the cotton economy like the rest of their southern neighbors. And though they were slaveowners, they fiercly opposed secession from the Union. In fact, 42,000 East Tennesseeans signed on as soldiers in the Union Army.

And here’s where the one-star American flag comes in. In a secret collaberation between a group of East Tennessee Unionists and the Union Army, a plot was hatched to burn key bridges in advance of an invasion by Union forces. The objective was to prevent Confederate forces from being able to meet the Union Army.

On the night of November 8, 1861, the bridge-burners were able to destroy five bridges. Unbeknownst to them however, the union Army had changed their plans and did not invade. This unfortunate turn of events left the bridge-burners and their families exposed to arrest by the occupying Confederates. Suspects were rounded up but only six were eventually found guilty and hanged.

One of the six was Christopher Alexander Haun who was found guilty of burning the Lick Creek Bridge. On December 11, 1861, Haun was hanged in Knoxville and his body was returned home with a Union battle flag draped over his casket. American flags had 34 stars at the time and his widow removed all but one star from the flag and secretly handed them out to the other members of the East Tennessee bridge-burners.

The one-star American flag has been passed down through generations of Haun’s decendants and was only recently donated to the East Tennessee Historical Society where it will eventually be displayed in the East Tennessee Historical Museum.