S.C.V. members speak out on Confederate flag at local cemetery
Editor:
The placing of the flag pole at Green Hill Cemetery was placed as a memorial for Lt. Tipton and the other Confederate soldiers buried there. It was attacked verbally, with two flags stolen from the pole showing utmost disrespect; not only to the veterans, but also to the S.C.V., which held a memorial service there. The two men who erected the pole with the blessing of the Commander of Vaughn’s Brigade, Tennessee Division, S.C.V. have been singled out for undue verbal attacks and defamation.
Some of our detractors claim the flag makes Green Hill a “military cemetery.” It does nothing of the sort. Most cemeteries have veterans of various wars buried in them. Oak Hill Cemetery in Johnson City has five flag poles, placed where at least one can be viewed from any location within the cemetery. Three are U.S. Flags, one State of Tennessee Flag and one Confederate Flag. The Confederate Flag was placed in February of last year in a ceremony, conducted in like manner as the one at Green Hill in Elizabethton. There have been no complaints whatsoever about that flag.
We are in the Sesquicentennial period of that horrible conflict and lively interest is being directed toward museums, cemeteries and the veterans of those conflicts, who of course, rest in cemeteries throughout the land. I have been reading in the Elizabethton STAR where the descendants of Captain Daniel Ellis, a Union soldier, plan on some sort of memorial for him. I say place it….place a flag….and keep his grave maintained. If a service is held, the Honor Guard in blue will likely be local re-enactors, some S.C.V. members. And they do not charge for their activity. We are not the ones saying to take the memorials down. We want them placed.
Sincerely,
Bill Hicks, 2nd Lt. Cmdr.
Lt. Robert D. Powell #1817, Blountville
Sons of Confederate Veterans
www.ltrobertdpowell1817.com
