'Stars and Bars' Raised on Bowman Field
In 1904, with the arrival of a new commandment, Captain Edgar A. Sirmyer of the Eighth United States Calvary based out of Michigan, the boys of Clemson College found it as a prime opportunity to display their resentment towards a service academy educated northerner. According to John M. Coski, author of The Confederate Battle Flag: America’s Most Embattled Symbols, he states “[Clemson College] made headlines when they ceremoniously raised a Confederate flag on a newly erected pole…the commandment ordered the flag be lowered, inciting a small riot.[1] The following day, a struggle between a cadet and Captain Sirmyer took place when once again, the “Stars and Bars” were substituted in for “Old Glory.” According to Reel, “[Captain Sirmyer] leapt forward and grabbed the lanyard to halt the flag’s ascent, but the cadets raising the banner had the momentum.”[2] In a flash, a photographer snapped a photo of the Confederate flag flying over Clemson’s Bowman Field. Before it was removed, President Mell and the cadets comprised that the Confederate Battle Flag would be lowered and removed to the tune of ‘Dixie.’ After receiving less than favorable coverage from the national press, the Clemson administration dismissed the incident as “a boyish prank to do the unusual thing while trying to worry the authorities.”[3] It wasn’t until a 1959 interview of a group of 1904 graduates of Clemson College that revealed the administration had downplayed the insurrection. According to the Greenville News article, “the commandment [Captain Sirmyer] wired Washington for Federal troops to quell the insurrection but the cadets intercepted the message at the railroad depot…”[4] The now elderly cadets, only using aliases, explained that had the wire not been intercepted more than fifty-five cadets, with weapons, were barricaded and “ready for war." This incident exemplified the attitude of the cadets. This was not a prank or a simple case of mischief, the boys of Clemson were prepared to take up arms against the Federal government to protect an ideology perpetuated by the ‘Lost Cause.’
[1] Coski, The Confederate Battle Flag, 89.
[2] Reel, The High Seminary, 164.
[3] “21 Apr 1904, 1 - The National Tribune at Newspapers.Com.”
[4] “21 Jun 1959, Page 1 - The Greenville News at Newspapers.Com.”