Flags and Billboards Along I-95 South of Richmond

My, oh my.

It’s on. Maybe.

I now think that the Flaggers might have been reenacting Jeb Stuart’s decision on July 3, 1863, to fire a cannon in four directions. Some people think he did so to flush out the enemy; others think it was to announce his presence. Neither explanation seems altogether acceptable, but we don’t know for sure.

Certainly, however, the Flaggers’ eagerness for publicity in advance of undertaking the project has made things more interesting. Perhaps Susan Hathaway’s eagerness for microphones and cameras has got the best of her this time.

An Eye for an Eye

Soon after African American soldiers saw combat action in the spring and summer of 1863, reports began to filter back of Confederate mistreatment of black Union POWs as well as their white officers. While the Confederate government had pledged to treat white officers of black soldiers as inciting insurrection (and thus liable to execution if captured), the policy toward captured black soldiers was to return then to their former masters (leaving in legal limbo the treatment of free backs in uniform who were captured). Now, however, it seemed that Confederate captors were doing more than just that.