Porter's Battery

The story of the War of Southern Independance, told from the view of the flag. The Saint Andrew's Cross. I had the honor of meeting the author Dr Michael Bradley, yesterday. He is a wonderful man and I enjoyed learning from him. I am proud to call him a friend. He will be speaking at Fort Negley at the Nashville Civil War Round Table soon. I plan on going to hear him.

I Am Thier Flag
By Dr Michael R. Bradley
In 1861, when they percieved their rights to be threatned; when those who would change the nature of the govenrnment of thier fathers were placed in charge of that government; when threatned with more change than they could accept, the mighty men of valor began together. This band of brothers, native to the Southern soil, pledged themselves to a cause: the cause of defending family, fireside, and faith. Between the desolation of war and their homes the interposed thier bodies and the chose me as thier symbol. I AM THIER FLAG.
Mothers, wives, and sweethearts took scissors and thimbles, needles and thread and from silk or cotton or calico-whatever was the best they possesed-even from the fabric of their wedding dresses, they cut my pieces and stitched my seams. I AM THIER FLAG.
On courthouse lawns, in picnic grounds, at train stations all across the South the men mustered, and the women placed me in thier hands. "Fight hard, win if you can, come back to me if at all possible but above all, maintain your honor. Here is your symbol," they said. I AM THIER FLAG
They flocked to the traing grounds and the drill fields. They endured the wrenching sadness of leaving home. They experienced illness, lonliness, boredom, bad food, and poor quarters, but through it all they looked to me for inspritation. I AM THIER FLAG.
I was at Sumter when they began in jubilation. I was at Big Bethel when the infantry fired its first volley. I smelled the gun smoke along the banks of Bull Run in Virginia and at Belmont on the shores of the Mississippi. I was in the debacle at Fort Donelson. I led Jackson back down the Shenandoah. For seven days, I flapped in the turgid air of the James RIver bottoms as McClellan retreated from Richmond. Sidney Johnson died for me at Shiloh as would thousands of others whose graves are marked Sine Nomine "without a name," Unknown I AM THIER FLAG.
With ammunition gone they defended me along the railroad cut at Manassas by throwig rocks. I saw the fields turn red at Sharpsburg. Brave men carried me across Doctor's Creek at Perryville. I saw the Blue bodies carpet Marye's Heights at Fredricksburg; I saw the Gray bodies fall like leaves in the Round Forest and Murfreesboro. I AM THIER FLAG
I was a shroud of Ole Stonewall after Chancellsorville. Men ate rats and mule meat to keep me flying at Vicksburg. I tramped across the wheat field with Kemper and Garnett and Armistead at Gettysburg. I know the thrill of victory, I know the misery of defeat, I know the cost in human blood of both. I AM THIER FLAG
When Longstreet broke the line at Chickamauga I was in the lead. I was the last off Lookout Mountain. Men died to rescure me at Missionary Ridge. I was singed by the wildfire that burned to death the wounded in the Wilderness. I was shot to tatters in the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvainia. I saw it all from Dalton to Peachtree Creek and no worse place did I ever see than Kennesaw Mountain and New Hope Church. They planted me in the trenches at Petersburg and there I stayed for nine long months. I AM THIER FLAG
I rolled in blood at Franklin; I was stiff with ice at Nashville. Many good men bade me farwell at Saylor's Creek. When the end came at Appomattox, when the last Johnny Reb left Durham Station, many of them carried fragments of my fabric hidden about thier bodies I AM THIER FLAG
In the hard years they call "Reconstruction," in the difficulty of despair of years that slowly passed by, the vetrans and thier wives, thier sons and daughters, they loved me. They kept alive the tales of valor and the legends of bravery. They passed them on to thier children, and they to thiers and they to thiers-and so, now, those tales are passed on to you. I AM THIER FLAG