This weekend, we celebrate not only Independence Day but also the 159th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.

I am proud to count as one of my maternal ancestors a Union soldier killed at Gettysburg. Corporal James S. Kent was a volunteer from New Hampshire; he belonged to the 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters, an unusual regiment consisting of specially-recruited expert marksmen. My family was fortunate to have kept some of James Kent’s original letters from the front lines. More than a century later, James’s patriotism and courage inspire me; when my own spirits have flagged over the last several years, I have pulled out my copies of his letters and reread his words.

In the fall of 2021, I traveled from New Mexico to collect James’s letters from my uncle in Connecticut and hand-deliver them to the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA. The museum was delighted to receive my donation. “Letters from sharpshooters are tremendously rare and important and much sought-after by researchers,” curator Brett Kelley told me. That emotional journey will be the subject of a separate piece.

In May of this year, I visited Charleston, SC with some friends. To close the circle on my James Kent trip, I thought it would be fitting to visit the place where the Civil War had started: Fort Sumter. To reach the fort, located on an island in Charleston Harbor, my friends and I boarded a ferry at Liberty Square. We took seats on the top deck. As the boat sped across the harbor, a volunteer from the National Park Service narrated the history of the fort. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, and the initial shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter by Confederate troops in the early morning of April 12, 1861. On April 14, Union commander Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. Union troops attempted to recapture Fort Sumter in 1863 but were unsuccessful; they did not reclaim it until February 22, 1865.

As the ferry neared the island, we glimpsed Old Glory flying above the fort, and my heart soared. I had never felt the sense of Union victory, or the reunion of North and South, as powerfully as I did when I saw the Stars and Stripes waving in the breeze over the former Confederate-held territory.

I was not the first to experience this feeling. In February of 1865, as Charleston was being recaptured by Union forces, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Fox, commanding officer of the 55th Massachusetts Regiment, wrote to his family, “If I were to live to the extreme of the usual age of men, the memory of this day would remain bright and distinct to the end. Even now I can hardly realize that the birth place [sic] of the rebellion is in our hands.”* (Golay, 1999, p. 125).

The flag holds a special place in the heart of Americans. When European friends visit the US, they are always somewhat amused to observe American flags flying in places like airports and car dealerships. Before the Civil War, the flag had been used primarily by the government and the military. The attack on Fort Sumter and Federal surrender of the fort provoked a blaze of patriotic sentiment. “Throughout the North, as the news from Charleston arrived, the Stars and Stripes appeared on public buildings and private homes” (Weigley, 2000, p. 23). Devotion to the flag continued throughout the war and afterwards.

Once on the island, we walked along the ramparts and examined the restored artillery. A small museum inside the fort displays information and artifacts. Among these is the flag which flew over the fort during the initial bombardment. The accompanying plaque reads:

“This 10-foot by 20-foot tattered storm flag flew over Fort Sumter during the bombardment of April 12-13, 1861. On the second day a Confederate projectile shattered the flagstaff causing members of the Federal garrison to rush onto the parade ground, amid exploding shells and burning timbers, to retrieve the fallen flag. They carried it to the ramparts where it was hastily nailed to a wooden pole and re-raised.”

The battle-scarred flag reminded me of James’s own love of the Stars and Stripes. On May 12, 1862, he wrote to his sister, “We then came into…Falmouth [VA]…our regiment the first one, and our regiment colors the first of the Stars and Stripes, to float where so lately only the Confederate States rag had been acknowledged.”

The last few years have been difficult for Americans. We find ourselves increasingly divided on a multitude of issues. Among a segment of the population, our “Constitutional Conscience” appears to be eroding. Some Americans even say that they don’t care about the Constitution. On social media, there is occasional talk of a “national divorce.” I do not know if this will come to pass. We may forget that, not so very long ago, our country was bitterly divided.

In his letters, James described the animosity of the Civil War era. Of his regiment’s arrival in Falmouth, he wrote, “The ‘colored folk’ were very glad to see us, and the whites say they are, but I have no faith in their unionism, curse them, they would cut our throats in a minute if they could do it without being found out.”

Even in the closing months of the war, hostility did not dwindle. As General William Tecumseh Sherman conducted his controversial campaign through South Carolina in February of 1865, “All the while, conqueror and conquered were storing up stocks of gall that would last for a generation” (Golay, 1999, p. 124).

I do not know if we are more divided now than we were in the 1860s. Throughout the Civil War, there were no doubt many times that Union forces, and Lincoln himself, worried that all was lost. After James perished at Gettysburg, a battle that was a Union victory, there were long, dark days ahead. In his Gettysburg Address, delivered more than four months after the battle, Lincoln said, “We highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.” In the end, the Union forces prevailed. The Confederates surrendered at Appomattox, GA in April of 1865, and the Union was restored.

As we boarded the ferry back to the mainland, I cast a last glance at Old Glory. I felt uplifted and hopeful. I was certain that James would be proud to see the Stars and Stripes flying again above Fort Sumter. In the space of an afternoon, I had gained a new perspective on conflict. Although at times despairing, we may take comfort from the fact that the tide can shift in our favor, even after a long battle. May we, like the Federal soldiers at Fort Sumter, have the courage to step forward and retrieve our fallen flag.

*The 55th Massachusetts was a black regiment, and Fox was a staunch abolitionist. About the recapture of Charleston, he wrote, “May the cradle be also the grave of the child of sin.” (Golay, 1999, p. 125).

Note: When writing about military history, it is customary to refer to soldiers by their rank. I have made an exception for Cpl. James S. Kent, whom I call by his first name in order to emphasize the personal connection I feel to him.

References

Golay, Michael. A Ruined Land: The End of the Civil War. John Wiley and Sons, 1999.

James Kent to his sister Adaline Kent, May 12, 1862. National Civil War Museum Archives.

Weigley, Russell F. A Great Civil War. Indiana University Press, 2000.

Image credit of the author.