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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsConfederate flag defenders' planned Capitol protest fizzles (MN)
But counter-protesters gathered anyway.
By Tony Kennedy
Star Tribune
SEPTEMBER 5, 2015 12:05PM
A small Southern heritage group abandoned its plan to hold a rally on the steps of the Minnesota Capitol this morning in support of the Confederate battle flag ...
Still, a group of counter-protesters gathered anyway, ready to thwart the flag demonstration.
The small cadre of Confederate flag supporters, maybe a half-dozen strong ... regrouped in a parking lot of a city park in Savage, in the south metro, for a short demonstration ...
http://www.startribune.com/confederate-flag-pretenders-planned-capitol-protest-fizzles/324748531/
struggle4progress
(118,295 posts)BY SUSAN DUMONDAY
AUGUST 24, 2015
... BC Johnson, Minnesota's rally organizer, is a South Carolina native who moved to Minnesota for more job opportunities in transportation. He has ancestors who fought and died in the Civil War, he says, but he isnt sure for which side ...
Johnson will act as lone spokesman for what will most likely turn out to be a group of white flag-bearers. Its a spotlight commonly occupied by one of Johnsons role models, once-NAACP chapter president turned Sons of Confederate Veterans front man, H.K. Edgerton ...
It also helps Johnsons case to not believe that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Despite the 80-some references to slavery in the Declaration of Causes of Seceding States, he says the reasons for the war are complicated ...
http://www.citypages.com/news/meet-bc-johnson-the-black-guy-behind-minnesotas-confederate-flag-rally-7587555
malaise
(269,063 posts)Go BC Johnson!!!!
HassleCat
(6,409 posts)Savage is a long way from St. Paul. They fizzled at the capitol, so they drove an hour south? What's in Savage? All I remember is a bunch of grain elevators down by the river.
NCjack
(10,279 posts)it has a Culver's Restaurant. Good quality food in a dinner style, with just a little price premium. Worth it to me. Damn -- Savage has a Culver's, but the entire state of North Carolina doesn't. The time I was in Savage, I never saw a Stars-and-Bars on anything.
Journeyman
(15,036 posts)The First Minnesota Volunteers is one of the most storied regiments of the War.
They were the first volunteers. The Governor of Minnesota, Alexander Ramsey, was in Washington the day Mr Lincoln put out the first call for volunteers and Ramsey quickly stepped forward with a promise to raise a regiment. He had some idea it would be a useful addition; he had no idea how well they would distinguish themselves.
Very few of the original 3,000 men returned home just a scant two years later. They fought in nearly every major engagement of the first two years of war: Bull Run, the Penninsula, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville.
At Gettysburg, they found themselves almost alone on Cemetery Ridge, the only Union force available to confront a mass of Confederate troops who were storming through the broken lines of Gen. Sickles' ill-placed defenses and threatening to get behind the Federal lines.
Gen. Hancock, commanding the center, knew he needed to delay the Confederates for five minutes so he could move in reinforcements. What he found for the task was the 1st Minnesota. He pointed to the advancing enemy lines and told Col. Colville to hold 'em at all cost. Charging forward, the Minnesotans fixed bayonets as they ran. They knew it was suicide. They numbered only 262. And there were more than 1600 Alabamans coming towards them.
It was the highest casualty rate in a single engagement of any regiment in the war. Only 47 men returned. They suffered a staggering loss of 82%. But they bought Gen. Hancock not five minutes, but ten, inflicted tremendous casualties on the Rebel regiment, and helped hold the line.
There are over 1600 monuments at Gettysburg. The very first was dedicated to the 1st Minnesota. It was placed in the National Cemetery exactly four years to the hour after Col. Colville lead that fateful charge. It's one of the simplest, a stone urn in which fresh flowers are planted every Spring. On Cemetery Ridge there's a larger monument, atop which a running soldier is posed, bayonet at the ready, faced eternally towards the rock-strewn swale into which so many gave that last full measure.
On the vase in the graveyard are etched these words:
[center]All time is the millenium of their glory.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)banning the Dixie swastika, and people were upset about it. I have no idea why people in OH and MN are getting upset about that damn flag- do they not know what side our states (native Buckeye here) fought on during the war?
HassleCat
(6,409 posts)My forebears served in the Eighth Wisconsin, the regiment that carried Old Abe the eagle. Now their descendants are flying the rebel battle flag from their pickup trucks. Makes absolutely zero sense to me. None of my family have ever lived in the south, not even for short periods, so there is none of that "southern pride" excuse. I think they're just buttheads who like tweaking people and getting on our nerves. The older members of my family are horrified at seeing a rebel flag.