“In 2000, Virginia legislators got involved, asking Governor Jesse Ventura to return their captured icon.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘We won.’”
LMAAAAO
All the salty racists in the comments are a cherry on top.
Die mad about it energy strong af
Okay but this is a story that @dadhoc loves to talk about because this is a REALLY BIG DEAL in Minnesota.
I have heard the story of The First Minnesota at LEAST ONE HUNDRED TIMES in the course of my marriage and now I GET TO TELL THE REST OF YOU.
So. It’s not just ANY Confederate flag. It is the Confederate flag that the First Minnesota captured on July 3rd, 1863. The First Minnesota prevented the Union line from crumbling by keeping the Federalists from being pushed off of Cemetery Ridge on July 2nd, and on July 2nd, the First Minnesota sustained 82% casualties.
EIGHTY-TWO PERCENT CASUALTIES. They started out as 262 men and ended as 47. But they held the line. They held. The. Line. Then on July 3rd they were placed in one of the few places where the line was breached, and they thus had to charge in again and retake the line breaches, and they did.
It was during one of these charges – remember, they’d already lost eighty-two percent of their friends – that Private Marshall Sherman of Company C captured the flag. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for this.
The survivors of the First Minnesota at Gettysburg served through the rest of the war.
Now, Virginians have asked for it back repeatedly, saying ‘it’s our heritage.’ But the response from the Minnesota Historical Society has basically been, as @dadhoc has summed it up, “to us, this is the legacy of 215 men who were killed or wounded in the preservation of the Union. What, exactly, is its legacy to you?”
No one’s been able to give an answer that isn’t ‘it’s our legacy of trying to destroy the US over slavery,’ because there isn’t one.
Fuck Virginia wanting that flag back, it belongs in Minnesota.
As someone who grew up in Gettysburg, I feel like I missed out on not knowing this story and now I need to pay my respects to these men next time I visit my mom. This is entirely amazing and I love it.
@dadhoc yells about this piece of their state’s history ALL THE TIME. It’s one of those pieces of history that should be talked about more because the fact that the First Minnesota held the line on the 2nd where they did is one of those “for want of a nail” moments, where if that specific spot in the line had broken, Gettysburg, and thus the war, would have gone VERY differently.
The flag was on display for a long time and IIRC it only isn’t now because of its condition. HOWEVER if any of my followers who live in MN want to go see the actual flag of the First Minnesota, IIRC it’s in the State House rotunda. (I told you, @dadhoc talks about this A LOT.)
Okay but this image from the Reddit thread linked above:
