STAFFORD COUNTY, Va. -- You'll probably see this the next time you drive north on Interstate 95 towards Washington D.C.
The Virginia Flaggers raised a second Confederate flag along the interstate, this new one in Stafford County, just north of Fredericksburg.
The flag, called a “memorial battle flag” by the group, is an Army of Tennessee version and measures in at 20 by 30 feet.
The flag was raised Saturday morning in a small, private ceremony.
The same group raised this Confederate flag along I-95 in Chesterfield last September and the act caused a lot of controversy.
An online petition was even circulated in hopes it could derail the flag being hoisted.
Some called the flag a symbol of racism. But the Virginia Flaggers say the flag doesn’t represent hate, and explain that it is a tribute to those who died for the South.
It is specifically to remember the nearly 246,000 Confederate soldiers who fought in separate battles in the vicinity of Fredericksburg (1862), Chancellorsville (1863), Spotsylvania (1864) and the Wilderness (1864), said the group.
Below is an excerpt from the Virginia Flaggers.
“The preservation of liberty and freedom guaranteed by our forefathers and embodied in the US Constitution of 1788, motivated these men to leave their loved ones and take up arms, and driven by duty and honor, they answered the call to defend their State from invasion. Their noble attributes are the underpinning of our republican society and represent the foundation on which this nation was built. These citizen-soldiers of all races, creeds, and faiths, who fought for the Confederacy, personified the best qualities of America.”
The group said that landowners all across Virginia, and even in other states have contacted them to offer land to fly more flags, ever since they first erected the other flag.
