Country Life: Rebels on the Hudson

I WAS pumping gas when in behind me pulled a pickup. Big, high built, lots of chrome. Volunteer fireman’s plate on the front bumper. As I went into the PX to pay, I got a look at the back bumper: various stickerage, including a Confederate battle flag.

Now the pickup wasn’t passing through, because it had New York plates, and the sticker wasn’t a pure fluke, because I’ve seen other battle flags in the area. If this were the Old South, or a border state, or even the border of a border state, like my wife’s hometown, Cincinnati (which has a big Kentucky diaspora), then the battle flag would be one thing: a regional connection, perhaps familial. It could be a connection to Robert E. Lee, or to the first Klan, but it would be one kind of connection: I live here, it flew here, my people flew it, so do I.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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I WAS pumping gas when in behind me pulled a pickup. Big, high built, lots of chrome. Volunteer fireman’s plate on the front bumper. As I went into the PX to pay, I got a look at the back bumper: various stickerage, including a Confederate battle flag.

Now the pickup wasn’t passing through, because it had New York plates, and the sticker wasn’t a pure fluke, because I’ve seen other battle flags in the area. If this were the Old South, or a border state, or even the border of a border state, like my wife’s hometown, Cincinnati (which has a big Kentucky diaspora), then the battle flag would be one thing: a regional connection, perhaps familial. It could be a connection to Robert E. Lee, or to the first Klan, but it would be one kind of connection: I live here, it flew here, my people flew it, so do I.