State

A Banner for the "Yankee Celebration" ll was 1876. and many Tar Hods wanted no part of The C'ontonnial. By II. G. JONES (Curator. North Carolina Collection) The Civil War had been over only eleven years when the United States observed the centennial of the declara¬ tion of independence. The war wounds were so deep that many Southerners were in no mood to glorify the Union, and the official catalog of the Centen¬ nial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 reflected the predominance of exhibits from non-Confederate states. The outspoken Cornelia Phillips Spencer of Chapel Hill put it this way: ”1 confess I have thought sometimes it would be as well if we stood w ith our arms folded, looking on steadily and scornfully at the grand 'yankee cele¬ bration'. refusing to share in it, or to swell their vain glorious triumph by any participation." But. she continued. “Far be it from the genial, generous and brave South¬ ern heart to entertain or cherish or ad¬ vocate such a cause. We must see that the year 1876 is marked by the return of entire cordiality between North and South. If we have nothing to show, in those great Halls now preparing at Philadelphia, no token of Southern wealth, or grandeur, or prosperity, we can at least show ourselves there. Our men and women are worth looking at. and we can exhibit the finest spectacle in the world — a generous rivalry in the road to reconciliation, and absolute forgiveness of all injuries, and oblitera¬ tion of all ill-will forever.” The women prepared a circular ap¬ pealing for financial contributions: ". . . we ask you to aid us in procuring a Flag that we may not be ashamed to send as the representative offering of a State which may justly claim to be equal to any other in asserting and maintaining the rights of the Colonies to be free. The Flags will remain in Independence Hall until the celebra¬ tion of the Bi-cenlennial. and we desire that it shall be historic in design, costly in fabric, and made by the hands of those who are proud to subscribe themselves descendants of the women of the Revolution." Cornelia Spencer threw herself vig¬ orously into the campaign to raise the necessary money. To Eleanor Swain Atkins, she wrote. "You are a N. Carolina girl. & have got some good Revolutionary blood in your veins. Help us get up this Flag. Send me something — anything, from one dollar up to ten — & your name shall appear w ith honor w hen the list is read out at the Bi-Ccntennial . & your Grcat-grand-children will hear it." Despite indignant refusals of aid from some Tar Heels. Mrs. Spencer and the other women eventually raised the funds. That the project was under¬ taken by the Ladies Memorial Associ¬ ation, formed only ten years before to care for the Confederate dead, is all the more remarkable. To Hang 100 Years Now. Cornelia wasn’t noted as being overly tender, but her thoughts on "Yankee celebration" were shared by many other Tar Heels. Among them were the member* of the Ladies Memorial Association of Wake County who decided to accept the invi¬ tation of the “Ladies Department" of the centennial to provide a flag com¬ memorating the deeds of their state in the American Revolution. 12 Oertel Was Available With money in sight, the women turned attention to the making of a fiag. They could have sewn one themselves, but an unusual opportunity suddenly presented itself, and they eagerly took advantage of it. To Raleigh in May. 1876. came the Reverend Johannes Adam Simon Oer¬ tel. a Bavarian-born artist who had migrated to the United States and earned a considerable reputation in the North as an artist of religious subjects. Some of his early work — for instance. "Rock of Ages” — had. however, been pirated, and he was in financial straits when in 1869 he moved to l-cnoir. North Carolina, and became minister of St. James Episcopal Church. His seven years at Lenoir had also been very lean, and Oertel came to Raleigh in search of patrons who wished portraits — or any other artwork — painted. Through the month of June. Oertel worked on the huge white double silk banner, measuring about four by eight feet. By the end of the month the finished flag was put on exhibition at the Alfred Williams Bookstore in Raleigh and shortly afterward was forwarded to Philadelphia. The Daily Sentinel described the front of the flag as consisting of the allegorical figures of liberty and pros¬ perity as a medallion in the center sur¬ rounded by a monochrome border of white oak and holly. Various dates decorated the space around the center, and a dove bearing an olive branch ("as a token of the good will and fra¬ ternity of North Carolina to her sister states") appeared in one corner. The other side, of which no picture apparently exists, was described thusly: "The reverse side is simply a description, by general emblems of the ’Old North State’, which well known designation is written over the right and left of the medallion centre, con¬ taining in the form of a landscape, the coast and mountain character and the principal products of the state, while the lower comers contain respectively the magnolia as belonging to the east¬ ern section and the rhododendron rep¬ resenting the western section of North Perhops there would hove been no North Corolmo llog at the Centennial Exposition had it not been lor the vigorous campaigning ol Cornelia Phillips Spencer, who felt the yeor 1 876 should be "morked by the return ol entire eordiolity between the North and South " She was |Oined in the protect by the Lodies Memorial Association THE STATE. June 1976