JAMESTOWN, N.D. - The battle flag of the Confederate States of America has been making a lot of news lately. Probably more than it has since the end of the hostilities in the American Civil War 150 years ago.
This region doesn’t have much of a Civil War history. The area was too sparsely populated in that era.
That is not to say there aren’t some places that show up on the Civil War map. Battles such as Whitestone Hill near Kulm, Big Mound near Tappen and Killdeer Mountain are classified as Civil War battles. There were no Confederate soldiers at any of these conflicts but soldiers of the Union Army fought Native Americans.
This did remove Union army fighting forces from the battlefields of the South.
After the war, there certainly were Confederate veterans who lived and worked in this area, although I doubt they flew the old flag much.
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The Jamestown Alert has literally hundreds of mentions of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union soldier’s veterans group, but no mention of any local chapter of the United Confederate Veterans or any other local group of soldiers from the South.
Most of the references to ex-confederates, especially if they criticized the Dakotas, were sharp and a bit nasty.
In 1882, there was a bill in Congress to split the Dakota Territory into two new territories called North and South Dakota. This bill’s likely intent was to prepare the area for becoming two states which ultimately happened in 1889.
Sen. Graham Vest of Missouri was opposed to splitting the territory and, if it was to be split, wanted the northern segment named Pembina.
Vest had been a member of the Confederate House of Representatives during the war. In addition, he supported clemency for the James Brothers, Jesse and Frank, on the charges of bank and train robbery.
Both these traits seemed to draw the ire of the writers of The Jamestown Alert. An Alert front page article suggested thieves in the area “go into the train and bank robbing business in Missouri, James Brothers style, and then they may find grace in the eyes of the senator from Missouri.”
The writers of the Alert had some thoughts about changing the name of what would become North Dakota to Pembina.
“We might be reconciled to the change of our name to Pembina if congress would at the same time change the name of the Missouri River,” the article said.
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What did the writers of the Alert suggest for a new name for the Missouri River?
“Well, anything,” the article said. The article did say the river’s name should only be changed for the segment within the state of Missouri.
The Jamestown Alert got another jab in against the South, comparing Missouri to some islands near New Zealand with a gruesome reputation.
“The spectacle of a representative of the state of Missouri impeaching the character of any place outside of the Cannibal Islands is too utterly preposterous for anything,” the article said.
They probably weren’t flying the Confederate battle flag in Jamestown back in 1882.
