Confederate Union vol.II: The Confederate Union War

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New York Tribune Editor Horace Greeley paced his office on the upper floor of his newspaper’s building. Hazy sunshine filtered into the room through layers of high clouds. The curtains in the window flapped in the desultory breeze. From this perch Greeley could see most of the archipelago of Metropolitan New York. Looking out the far window he had an unobstructed view across the rooftops and over the East River to the City of Brooklyn. The view from the west window looked out on the suburban towns across the Hudson spreading inland into New Jersey.

Greeley observed two flags flying over the city.

The old “Stars and Stripes” was flown by New Yorkers who sought neutrality from the civil war out there beyond the fortified lines ringing the suburbs, and by those too old or too provincial to care much about what went on in the hinterlands beyond the Hudson. The new Confederate Union flag, with its broad white and red vertical bars, was also visible above the cityscape. It had been designed by West Point Commandant Pierre Beauregard as his battle flag while fighting the Free Staters besieging the U.S. Military Academy up the Hudson. It had been taken up by citizens of Democratic Party affiliation who sought to recast the nation in their party’s image as a confederation of sovereign states.

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