What the Confederate Battle Flag did symbolize to Southern soldiers and their families was their Christian heritage and resistance to tyranny. They were fighting for the right of the Southern States and their people to determine their own political destiny, just as their Revolutionary War forefathers had fought the British. They were defending the rights won in that war and guaranteed by the Constitution of 1787, which they believed had been betrayed by their Northern invaders. They were fighting against the evil of unjust taxation and many other abuses of power perpetrated by Northern political factions. They were fighting to free themselves of a Northern political dominance that had enriched the Northern states and oppressed Southern states. After many years of hardship and blood spent on the battlefield, the Southern Cross came to symbolize the courage and blood sacrifice of the Confederate soldier and Southern people. They believed in the justice and righteousness of their cause, and when the surrender at Appomattox came, they gave up their regimental banners with tears and weeping.
To the great credit of Union General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a brave, honest, and compassionate Christian soldier, the Union troops at Appomattox gave a salute of arms to the surrendering Confederate regiments as they passed in final review before the Union victors. They had been their adversaries in war, but now these Union soldiers who had made blood sacrifices of their own, saluted the courage and honor of the defeated Confederate soldiers.
Sleep sweetly in your humble graves, sleep martyrs of a fallen cause,
Though yet no marble column craves the pilgrim here to pause.
In seeds of laurel in the earth, the blossom of your fame is blown,
And somewhere, waiting for its birth, the shaft is in the stone.
Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years, which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! Your sisters bring their tears, and these memorial blooms.
Small tributes! But your shades will smile, more proudly on these wreaths today,
Then when some cannon-molded pile shall overlook this bay.
Stoop, angels, thither from the skies! There is no holier ground
Then where defeated valor lies, by mourning beauty crowned.