"Go straight to hell with your Rebel yell!"

Last week, the governor of Maine signed a law making “The Ballad of the 20th Maine” the states official ballad.  The 20th Maine regiment has an honored place in the military history of the United States.

Late in the afternoon of July 2, 1863, on a boulder-strewn hillside in southern Pennsylvania, Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain dashed headlong into history, leading his 20th Maine Regiment in perhaps the most famous counterattack of the Civil War. The regiment’s sudden, desperate bayonet charge blunted the Confederate assault on Little Round Top and has been credited with saving Major General George Gordon Meade’s Army of the Potomac, winning the Battle of Gettysburg and setting the South on a long, irreversible path to defeat.

On such seemingly small things great historical events turn.  The three day battle was the largest military engagement in the Civil War, with upwards of 150,000 soldiers involved, yet the battle may have hinged on the actions of 386 Maine men on the extreme flank of the Union army.  It's hard to imagine that anyone in Maine would be unhappy with officially honoring their devotion to duty and their country.  Yet, Republicans in Maine felt that such an honor would give some people a sad.

“I find it a little bit, we are united states, we are not Union, we are united states. And I find it just a little bit – I won’t say offensive but that’s what I mean – to say that we’re any better than the South was,” said Rep. Frances Head (R-Bethel) during a May 1st public hearing on the bill.

“I am a lover of history and especially a lover of the Civil War period and regardless of what side people fought on, they were fighting for something they truly believed in,” said Rep. Roger Reed (R-Carmel), who specifically praised Confederate General Robert E. Lee. “Many of them were great Christian men on both sides. They fought hard and they were fighting for states’ rights as they saw them.”

Yes, there are always "fine people on both sides."  The rot of racism runs deep and demands that Republicans honor those God fearing Christian slave owners and  proudly display their flag.  Even in Maine.