Video
Junior Ranger Series: Do You Have a Flag?
Transcript
Hey everyone, my name is Emily Avery and I am one of the rangers here at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. Welcome to the first program of our Junior Ranger Series, which are programs designed especially for you kids. This year we're gonna have four of these programs, including this one, so, four total and actually if you participate in three out of these four programs you're going to earn some special junior ranger swag, and I'll tell you more about that at the end of our program. Now today, I am standing here at Orchard Knob, which is just outside of downtown Chattanooga, and we're going to be talking a little bit about Civil War flags and how important they were and what they meant and then at the end we're going to do a little activity. So, I'm really looking forward to it. Before we start however, I have kind of a little activity, just kind of get us thinking to get us started, and I'm going to show you a couple of different flags and so when you're watching this maybe you can if you're watching with a group you can say it out loud or you can kind of take a guess as to what these flags represent, what they stand for. So, here's the first one.
So, my guess is most of you probably recognize it. It's called the Jolly Roger. We see it a lot with pirates and pirate movies, and so when you see this flag you automatically think of pirates and so that's kind of what the flag represents. Let me do the next one.
So, if you're looking at this some of you may have seen it. Some of you may be a little stumped, and that's okay, but this is actually the flag for the Olympics, and so the five rings represent the five continents, when the Olympics were first founded, that would participate, and so when we have the Olympics, you'll see this flag all around. All right, let's do another one.
Hopefully, we'll be pretty familiar with this one. Especially those of you watching from Chattanooga. This is the Tennessee state flag and so, it's red and blue and in the middle we have a circle with three stars, and some of you may already know this but those three stars do represent kind of the three parts of Tennessee; eastern, middle and western Tennessee. So, in addition to representing the state of Tennessee, it actually has some pretty important symbols on it that also give us a little bit of context, give us a little more information. All right, let's do one more. So again, I bet some of you recognize this, even if you're not really able to name what it is. So, this is the national flag for the United Kingdom and so, it's kind of their version of our American flag. It represents their country, just like the Olympic flag we saw before. In the Olympics you'll see them carrying this flag. So flags represent the people who carry them or fly them. They mean something. In the Civil War, flags, often called colors or the colors, and I'm going to be using those words interchangeably, they were carried into battle by soldiers called a color bearer. And this color bearer would carry the flag into battle and the flag he was carrying was the regimental flag, and that flag again just like it sounds it represented the regiment or that group of soldiers that were fighting with him. Now here's the thing, if you think about carrying a flag you have a staff you have a flag and you're carrying that into battle, you have two hands holding that. What don't you have a hand for? Your gun. You are marching into battle without a weapon so for that reason a) color bearers were especially brave, and then b) there were soldiers assigned to guard that color bearer, they were called the color guard. Now why would a bearer need guarding necessarily in addition to not having his weapon? Well these symbols, these flags, these colors, that were going into battle with the regiment as this regiment marched into battle would be pretty easy to spot, which is a good thing. If you think about battle, it's pretty loud these soldiers, these regiments, aren't necessarily going to be able to hear what their commanding officer is telling them to do they're not going to be able to hear any musical cues, and so that flag would be pretty visible even above the smoke of battle. It would be something they could see and they knew follow their flag; follow that color bearer. So it was pretty important in battle. There was another reason it was important though, that flag, those colors, would represent everything that those men were fighting for; it signified why they were there. Regiments were often going to be, they're going to be from the same town or city, or kind of the same area in their states, and so those flags would sometimes even be designed by and given to the regiments from women from their hometown, and they would be reminded of home when they looked at those flags. So you can understand those flags, in addition to being really helpful during a battle to see, they were also going to be very powerful they had a big emotional connection to them too they symbolized something that reminded them of why they were there. So again, these flags are very visible; these color bearers are brave men, they're carrying their flags into battle and because they're very visible, they're also going to be pretty obvious to the opposing army, to the enemy. Which means that the color bearer, the colors, were a pretty easy target. We have instances of battles where multiple men carrying the colors, multiple color bearers are going to be shot are going to be killed during the course of battle because of how important their role is. We're actually going to talk about that in just a second of instances that happened on this very ground. Now before we talk about these color bearers at Orchard Knob, I just want to give you a quick overview of Orchard Knob and how it fits into the Battles for Chattanooga. So the ground we're standing on it is a little bit higher than all the other ground around us and on November 23th 1863 we have the Union Army who are going to be more than a mile away. And we have two Confederate regiments on this high ground and the Union Army is going to come and they're going to fight to take possession of this ground right here. Now they do that, and then what's going to happen is the Union General, Ulysses S. Grant, you might recognize that name. He's actually going to be president a few years later after the Civil War. He's going to set up his headquarters right here and what he's going to do is he's going to be here and he's going to watch the Battle of Lookout Mountain which happens the next day, on November 24th. And Lookout Mountain is going to be over there and then
we can see it in the distance. So he's going to be able to see Lookout Mountain, he's going to be able to watch that battle. And then General Grant is also going to have a great view and be able to see the Battle for Missionary Ridge, which takes place the next day on November 25th 1863. And that's Missionary Ridge over there.
So Orchard Knob is a very important place to the Battles for Chattanooga. Now remember I said there are Confederates here defending this land on November 23rd? Well there are two Confederate regiments, the 24th and 28th Alabama. These men are from Alabama. And the Union are going to be coming from downtown Chattanooga they're going to be marching this way and they're going to have to march, remember I said over a mile, and some of that land they're not even gonna have any cover they're not gonna have any trees they're gonna be exposed to enemy fire but they keep coming this way. And they're gonna engage these two Alabama regiments, and they're gonna outnumber them significantly and eventually the Alabaman regiments are going to retreat. Now one of the regiments, the Union regiments, in this battle are going to be the 93rd Ohio. Now the 93rd Ohio, their regimental flag is going to look like this.
You can see on this flag, or maybe you can't see but I'll read it to you, it says "Presented by the Ladies of Dayton, Montgomery Co." So remember I said these flags are often given to them by the women of their hometown? That's what this flag is. So this flag is being carried into battle. One of the soldiers after the battle is going to write about the battle and what he remembers, and he tells us that actually there are going to be three color bearers that get shot that die before they make it to Orchard Knob. It's the fourth person that picks up these regimental colors that's actually going to make it here. So that's pretty amazing. So the 93rd Ohio makes it. Additionally there is a gentleman in the 93rd Ohio and he is going to capture the battle flag of the 28th Alabama regiment and that flag looks like this.
Now this flag was pretty special, it was actually made of silk, and we know that it was part of, it was made from, the wedding dress of the wife of one of the soldiers in the regiment. So this flag was very special to them, again it signified kind of their home, and they are going to be the regiment is going to be incredibly overwhelmed, incredibly outnumbered. And so their flag gets captured and they're going to have to retreat without their colors. Which is a pretty big deal. It's pretty bad blow to the morale for these men. Now for the 28th Alabama, believe it or not, the story doesn't end there. It is in the early 1900s, so well after the Civil War, this flag is actually going to be given back to the state of Alabama. It is in the possession of the widow of Brigadier General Hazen, who is the brigade commander of the regiments including the 93rd Ohio, and his widow is going to donate this flag back to the state. And believe it or not, this flag is there to this day. These Civil War flags are so important that we keep them; they are a big deal. Now in addition to these flags being so important to the regiments, and so important so that, like that 28th Alabama flag, it makes their way home, there's another place we see flags around particularly in our park today. And those are going to be on top of our monuments. So if you look behind me, you see
some monuments here on Orchard Knob. And up at the top of those beautiful monuments are going to be effigies, or statues, sculptures, of soldiers, and these monuments are placed here by the states that had men fighting in the Battles for Chattanooga. The purpose of the monuments are to memorialize these men to help remember what happened here. And so these statues up at the top of soldiers are representative, or representing, the soldiers. But these states, when they designed their monuments thought that in addition to these sculptures, they also wanted to put the flag, the symbol of what these men were fighting for alongside the sculpture of a soldier representing who fought here. That's a pretty big deal. It's pretty amazing, and you'll see them all over our park not just here on Orchard Knob. So what we're going to do now is we're going to move down to the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center and I'm going talk a little bit more about some flags there. And we're actually going to talk about how the American flag fits into all of this, and we'll talk about how it's important today too. But before we do that, for those of you who have that piece of paper that you could have downloaded from the website, or if you don't have that you can just take a piece of paper and you can draw a rectangle in, we are actually going to be designing our own flags. And so when you go to color your flag, when you go to design your flag, you might want to think about some symbols that are important to you that are meaningful to you some words that maybe are important to you, because just like these flags that were here during the battle, the colors, the regimental colors, and these flags that are memorialized in these monuments, your flag when you're done will represent you. So we're going to go ahead and head down to the Visitor Center, but don't quite finish your flag yet, because down at the Visitor Center I have another piece of information that might change your idea of how your flag is going to look. So we're going to check that out down there. I will see you down there in just a few minutes.
All right everyone, welcome to the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center. And so we are here in Chickamauga, in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, so we're not in Chattanooga anymore, and the battle here at Chickamauga takes place before the Battle for Orchard Knob and Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. The battle here, the Battle for Chickamauga, is going to be on September 18th, 19th, and 20th, 1863. Remember those battles up in Chattanooga take place in November, 1863. Where I am standing in the Visitor Center you're probably able to see behind me, you have quite a few flags hanging from the ceiling. Those are going to be state flags, and what those flags are here to do is represent the different states that had soldiers fighting in the Battles for Chickamauga and Chattanooga. So these are the current state flags and again remember they have that symbolism, they represent the states that had men present for the battles. You'll also see there are quite a few the Stars and Stripes are what we call the American flag, those are displayed around here too. So those regimental flags we were talking about back at Orchard Knob were carried into battle by the regiments. The Union regiments actually would carry two flags into battle, they would carry that regimental flag like the one I showed you of the 93rd Ohio. They would also carry the national colors or the American flag into battle with them. That American flag, those national colors, actually doesn't look all that different from what our flag looks like today. The design is the same, the number of stars would have been different because they had a different number of states back then, but we all probably would have been able to recognize it pretty well.
So after the war ends in 1865, these soldiers are not going to be marching into battle anymore, the regiments are not going to use their regimental flags in battle anymore. And the American flag obviously not used in battle either but it's going to be on display in a lot of different places; it's still very prominent. Now the flag ended up having some rules and regulations made about how it could be used or displayed, a lot of states started passing laws after the Civil War ended, after 1865 into the early 1900s saying what you could and couldn't do with an American flag. In 1923 we're actually going to get our first ever flag code or U.S. Flag Code, and just like it sounds it's a list of rules and regulations of things to do with the American flag. And so that comes in 1923, it's made official by Congress in 1942, and it stands to this day. Believe it or not, a lot of you already know part of this flag code. If you know the Pledge of Allegiance, you know part of the code. Some of you, if you're in school, probably say it everyday, that's what I did growing up. That Pledge of Allegiance is a way that we show respect to our flag. And just like all of the flags meant something during the Civil War, our flag means something to us, it's representative of our country. And so when we pledge allegiance to the flag, we're showing it respect we're pledging our loyalty. Now again, if some of you say it everyday, like I did, it might be kind of easy to say it without really thinking about those words. And that's going to be kind of difficult if you think about the fact that these flags, these national colors, were carried into battle and men were willing to die for it, really wanted to hold it high. And so when we say our pledge, it's definitely worth us thinking about those words because it helps to show respect to the flag and the country for which it stands. The flag code has a lot of other rules one that a lot of people actually tend to know it's pretty common is that you never let the United States flag touch the ground again out of respect. There's another rule, however, that is something that we at the park use every day, and that is how to properly fold the American flag
So my friend Ranger Brian and I are going to show you how that works. This is the flag that we fly at the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center everyday. So a lot of you again recognize the design. Ranger Brian is holding the side that is going to be closest to the staff or the pole that the flag is flown from, and that blue corner over there that's called the Union and the United States Flag Code states that the number of stars on the flag shall always match exactly the number of states in the United States. So right now there are 50. You also have the rest of the flag being made up of red and white stripes. Again, I bet a lot of you already know that these 13 stripes are representative of the 13 original colonies. What some of you might not know is that the colors of the flag also mean something. So the red on this flag is representing the courage of the American people, the white is to represent justice, and the blue represents loyalty. So we have a lot of color symbolism here too. So now Brain and I are going to show you how to fold the flag and so what we do first is we take our flag and we fold it in half long ways. Once we do that we're actually going to take the flag and we're going to fold it in half long ways one more time. and notice that both times we do that we want to make sure that the Union, the blue with white stars, is visible down at the end that Brian's holding. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to start folding the flag and I'm going to make my way towards Ranger Brian and it's very specific. What I do is I take a corner and I fold it down to the edge so that I make a triangle. And then I'm going to take this triangle and I fold it towards the union so you can see it kind of overlays like this, and then I'm going to take the corner and fold it over so I have another triangle. And so I keep folding this triangle towards the Union and then folding it over to make another triangle and I'm repeating that process, triangle folding it towards the Union, triangle and eventually I'm going to get towards the Union, thank you Ranger Brian, and I'm going to be able to make it all the way to the end here so that the flag ends up as a triangle like this. And if we did our job right, we should not see any red. So that's how our flag is supposed to be folded properly. So I'm going to put that down right here.
Now remember back at Orchard Knob, I said maybe before you design your flag wait because I've got another piece of information that I wanted to tell you about? And that has to do with folding the flag. Before you design your flag, your paper flag, the one that you may have cut out or if you're just using a piece of paper kind of you drew a rectangle on your piece of paper, let's go ahead and fold these and then you can see what we'll be showing when you fold your flag, and that might help you kind of figure out how you want to design it. So when you take your paper, you're going to want to fold that flag in half long ways just like Brian and I did right here. So you have a long skinny piece of paper. Now we're not going to fold it in half long ways again because that makes it pretty difficult to do the triangles. So from here we're going to take that corner and we're going to fold it down towards the other edge so that we make that triangle, just like we had with the American flag. And then we fold it over one more time, and then we want to make a triangle again so we're going to fold it over, we make the triangle, we fold it towards the edge, and then we make another triangle. So we have our triangle folded flag. You might want to take like a pencil or a colored pencil and just kind of mark on the side kind of which parts of the flag are showing so that when you unfold it, you'll know exactly which parts of your flag are going to be showing when you color it in and design it.
So back at the beginning of the program remember I told you guys that we're going to have four of these Junior Ranger programs and this is the first one of the year. And so we have three more. And if you guys participate in any three out of the four programs you're going to earn some special Junior Ranger swag. Well of course since we're not in person I don't know who's watching, I don't know who's doing this program, and so the way that you're going to show that you participated is by taking a picture with your flag. You can either take it with your flag unfolded or you can fold it up and show what sides showing when you have your flag folded, but you're going to take that picture and you can post it on social media. You can post it on FaceBook or Instagram and you can tag the park @ChickamaugaNPS, and/or rather you could take that picture and you can email it to us. You can email it to us at chch_education@nps.gov. And so if you take a picture and you send that to us or you tag us on social media, we'll know that you guys participated and then hopefully we'll see you at our other Junior Ranger events later this year. So I hope you have a lot of fun designing your flag, and I will see you guys soon.
Description
Regimental flags, known as the “colors,” were essential during battle, visually directing soldiers on the battlefield. Colors were meaningful to soldiers as they represented who they were and where they came from. Because of the flag’s practical purpose and emotional significance, it was a high honor to be chosen to carry the flag into battle as the “color bearer.”
Duration
26 minutes, 5 seconds
Credit
NPS
Date Created
02/12/2021
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