Website Contents
CSA Flags Unfurled Home Page
Meaning of the Southern Cross
Confederate Flag Links
Books & Videos About Confederate Flags
CSA Flags Replicas

Flags of the
Confederacy
 Unfurled!

Meaning of the Southern Cross


"A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday does not know where it is today ... The reputation of an individual is of minor importance to the opinion posterity may form of the motives which governed the South in their late struggle for the maintenance of the principles of the Constitution. I hope therefore, a true history will be written, and justice will be done them." -- Gen. Robert E. Lee

The Southern Cross is the cross of St. Andrew, patron saint of Scotland since A.D. 750. The connection of the cross with St. Andrew can be traced back as far as the 13th century. It is believed that St. Andrew, brother of the the apostle Peter, was crucified by his persecutors upon a cross in the shape of an "X" in A.D. 60. Southerners, many of whom traced their ancestry to Scotland, very easily related to this Christian symbol. Southerners still do.

WORTHY to have lived and known our gratitude:
WORTHY to be hallowed and held in tender Remembrance:
WORTHY the Fadeless Fame which
CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS WON.
who gave themselves in life and Death for us:
For the honor of Georgia.
For the Rights of the States.
For the Liberties of the People.
For the Sentiments of the South.
For the Principles of the Union.
as these were handed down to them
by the Fathers of
OUR COMMON COUNTRY.
[Inscription on Confederate Monument, Augusta, GA]


"I was a soldier in Virginia in the campaigns of Lee and Jackson, and I declare I never met a Southern soldier who had drawn his sword to perpetuate slavery.... What he had chiefly at heart was the preservation of the supreme and sacred right of self- government.... It was a very small minority of the men who fought in the Southern armies who were financially interested in the institution of slavery." [Quote from The Gray Book, Sons of Confed. Vet's., p. 36]

Regarding the War Between the States, J. H. Thornwell (1812- 1862), President of South Carolina College & Professor at Columbia Theological Seminary wrote: "But the consequences of success on our part will be very different from the consequences of success on the part of the North. If they prevail, the whole character of the Government will be changed, and, instead of a federal republic, the common agent of sovereign and independent States, we shall have a central despotism, with the notion of States for ever abolished, deriving its powers from the will, and shaping its policy according to the wishes, of a numerical majority of the people; we shall have, in other words, a supreme, irresponsible democracy.... On the other hand, we are struggling for constitutional freedom. We are upholding the great principles which our fathers bequeathed us; and if we should succeed, and become, as we shall, the dominant nation of this continent, we shall perpetuate and diffuse the very liberty for which Washington bled, and which the heroes of the Revolution achieved. We are not revolutionists; we are resisting revolution. We are upholding the true doctrines of the Federal Constitution. We are conservative... We shall have a Government that acknowledges God, that reverences right, and that makes law supreme. We are therefore fighting, not for ourselves alone, but, when the struggle is rightly understood, for the salvation of this whole continent." [Life and Letters of James Henley Thornwell, pp. 582,583.]

Back to top
This website is designed by David N. Beckmann. Copyright 1998-2006. I may be contacted via e-mail at: dnbeckmann @ yahoo.com.