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 "Long story short, it's complicated," said Mark Edmondson, who
played a Union infantryman at a reenactment event in suburban
Chicago over the weekend.
"The Confederate battle flag is a necessary part of history and its
... important to clarify history and not fall into some politically
correct retelling," said the 36-year-old engineer, clad in a Union
blue soldier's uniform.
Questions about the flag invariably produce long and nuanced answers
from men and women who spend days each year in mock camps and
battlefields recreating American history. For one thing, they don't
like to talk about "the flag" but rather about "the flags."
Reenactors are quick to note that the rectangular "rebel flag,"
embraced by hate groups and displayed by Dylann Roof, the man
accused in the South Carolina church shootings, in pictures he
posted on the Internet, was not one of the Confederacy's three
official flags, but instead a Confederate navy banner and the flag
of the army of Tennessee.
Many Southern soldiers did carry square Confederate battle flags
like the one flying in front of Charleston’s state house, but very
few of those soldiers were slave owners and for many of them, the
battle was more about other issues, including states' rights,
Edmondson and other reenactors noted.
 "That flag probably shouldn't be flying at the capitol in
Charleston, but it's got a place in history. Our role as reenactors
is to teach history, not to present some watered-down
misinterpretation of events," said 22-year-old reenactor Grant
Kohler, who dressed as a Louisiana soldier of the era, fighting on
the Confederate side.
Edmondson, Kohler and some 50 other reenactors gathered at Fischer
Farm in Bensenville, Illinois on Saturday, for a weekend of 1860s
role playing that included no-frills tent camping, marching drills
and a mock musket and cannon battle.
One of hundreds of Civil War reenactments that take place every
summer across the country - and one of the first since the South
Carolina church shooting - the Bensenville event comes a week before
the 152nd anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, which is expected
to draw hundreds of gray- and blue-uniformed history buffs to the
Pennsylvania town.
In online forums, too, Civil War reenactors have discussed the
Confederate flag in the wake of the Charleston shootings.
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"I can understand the removal from modern government buildings. I
don't however agree with the removal from monuments, cemeteries, and
private locations," said one post on the online forum
cwreenactors.com.
"It starts with the state capitals and in a short time we are the
ones being told when, where and how we can put it to use," fretted
another.
The debate has brought an unexpected boost in Confederate and other
flag sales at the Regimental Quartermaster in Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, which also sells memorabilia and Civil War-era
uniforms to reenactors.
Chris Ackerman, the store's manager, said he has sold about 130
flags a week since the controversy over the Confederate symbol
erupted, up from 5 or 6 a week normally. Only about 30 percent of
those sales were Confederate battle flags, however, and most were to
return customers he knows to be reenactors.
"Bottom line, this flag is about heritage, not hate," he said. "But
if this symbol is successfully toppled, what's next?"
For Pam Welcome, an African-American reenactor who played Harriet
Tubman at the Bensenville event, it's more complicated. “I’m
conflicted. On one hand, I get the controversy about the flag and
why they want to take it down. But this is history. Good or bad,
this happened, and this is what it looked like. You can’t portray
history without that flag, that symbol,”
(Editing by Sue Horton)
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