Bullet and Shell Civil War Projectiles Forum

Author Topic: You knew this was coming in only a matter of time -- Dent makes the news  (Read 17744 times)

emike123

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2348
    • Bullet and Shell
    • Email
Wildman, 84 and going strong.  Love him or hate him (hard to do!) -- he is a part of Civil War relic collecting history.

http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/26725345/article-Civil-War-memorabilia-store-selling-out-of-Confederate-flags?

Civil War memorabilia store selling out of Confederate flags
by Hilary Butschek
June 28, 2015 12:43 AM | 3746 views | 2   | 3   |   | 
Wildman Slideshow
 
Play | Stop | << Previous | Next >>
Image 1 / 4
Wildman’s Civil War Surplus owner Dent Myers talks about his time in business in Kennesaw and offers his opinion of the recent removal of the Confederate battle flags from neighboring state capitals and Georgia’s own flag, during an interview Friday. Myers said people don’t know the true history of the flag, which he has been selling like hotcakes the past few days. The store sold hundreds of the flag this week and is shipping them all over the United States through Web orders. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff
DENT MYERS
KENNESAW — Dent Myers, 84, has invested half his life into his Civil War surplus store, Wildman’s, in downtown Kennesaw.

“I’ve got an interest in excavating,” Myers said.

Although the hole-in-the-wall sized shop on North Main Street sells hundreds of different items related to the battles of the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan and Southern pride memorabilia, the most popular item last week was a polyester Confederate flag.

“From the amount we’ve sold I think every person in the country will be flying a Confederate flag. We’ve sold about 300 to 400, which is more than we normally sell in a year,” Myers said.

That flag has stirred up controversy in South Carolina, where politicians and residents are calling it a racial symbol, but Myers, a Civil War enthusiast and former Confederate Army re-enactor, said that’s not how he sees it.

“It’s a Christian flag. It’s just the cross of St. Andrew with stars on it,” Myers said.

Although the design is simple, Myers said it means a lot more to him than its association with the KKK.

“The flag is a part of me the same way your feet are part of you. It’s not physically obvious, but it’s part of my physical and mental makeup,” Myers said.

Myers blames the politicians for not standing up for their history when they allow people to criticize the Confederate flag.

“It’s a Christian flag that’s why they have such consternation about it. Some people say it’s racist, and all the wannabees go to their side, and then there’s all this hullabaloo about it. I cannot understand for the life of me how such a large segment of the populace can be so upset about an inanimate object. They don’t have a clue, and they don’t have a clue about any of the history either,” Myers said.

The store Myers runs seven days a week is packed to the brim with everything from metal bullet casings to KKK gowns and pro-segregation posters to country music CDs.

Former Gov. Roy Barnes spoke out this week on his view that the South should be ashamed of parts of its past. He said he thinks Confederate Memorial Day on May 30 and Confederate History month in April should be banned.

“One of the Confederate battle flags was called the ‘Stainless Banner,’ and it was white and red, and everybody acknowledges the white was for white superiority of the races, and that is gone from our society — or at least it should be. And why do we go back and try to use that as a time of nostalgia? As I said, education and life experiences can change a lot of things,” Barnes said.

Barnes dismissed claims the Civil War was not about slavery but instead about high tariffs imposed on the states from the federal government.

“I’ve read those succession ordinances, and I haven’t seen, ‘We’re leaving here because the U.S. government is trying to put too high of tariffs on us.’ In not one of them is (that) mentioned. Everything’s about slavery,” he said.

It’s the history that the store holds that Myers said is missing from the modern world. He believes everyone should learn the truth about their history, a story that is hard to find nowadays, Myers said.

“It will help in the long run if you’ve got false history then you’re a false person. You have false information and then you’ll pass it on and it’ll be false too and then you’ll have a world of falsities.”

The shop attracts locals who chat about the events 151 years past. Walking the aisle of the shop, a visitor could overhear conversation about the “real meaning of the Civil War.”

“People don’t know what Civil War means, so I asked this fellow here to tell me,” said Paul Steele, a retiree who lives in Kennesaw.

Steele pointed to Robert Nelson IV, a retiree who lives in Kennesaw, who had just given Steele a history lesson.

“A Civil War is when one faction takes over another faction. In the South, we just wanted to leave. And, listen to this, we never surrendered to the North. An armistice was never signed. When we surrendered, it was an army that we surrendered with, not a government,” Nelson, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Nelson repeated that the South had never really given up the war.

“It just means the South is still an entity,” Nelson said.

Nelson later began talking with another customer inside Wildman’s, Danny Field, an electrician who lives in Paulding County. Field had just purchased Wildman’s last cotton Confederate flag in stock. Its due to receive another shipment this week.

“I’m going to hang this up on my front porch right next to my American flag and just dare somebody to come up and say something to me about it,” Field said.

Nelson said the Confederate flag shouldn’t spark outrage.

“Everyone says it is a racial symbol. It is not. If you look at the neo-Nazis and the skinheads and the KKK — they all took it and distorted it. The KKK originally came about because after the war all the carpetbaggers from the north were coming down South and raping and pillaging. So, the KKK started as a vigilante force. They were part of the Confederate Army, so they used that flag,” Nelson said.

The flag is a part of the heritage of the South, a symbol he would fight for, Nelson said.

“The North doesn’t have as many monuments and battlefields up there, so to them it doesn’t mean anything. The North has never understood. The Northerners come down here and say, ‘What’s the big deal? Why can’t you just take it down?’ Well, for the people here who had people die in the war, it means a lot to us,” Nelson said.

 

John D. Bartleson Jr.

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1786
    • Email
Dear Mike,
   Gasp, a very long post but it prompted me to say a couple of sentences.
  With regard to flag colors, White stands for purity and red stands for bloodshed by soldiers.
The flag, including the Union Jack, is or was a symbol of leadership and direction.
     It was caried aloft by brave flag bearers who,in many insances, laid down their lives to keep it flying. A few even were awarded the Medal of Honor for their bravery.
      These "battle flags" gave all the troops the drection of the thrust of battle, even amid the smoke and the noise of the canon,the troops would follow it even if their action meant certain death.
So symbolically the flag ws floan from the SC capitol building as a modern day symbol of ladership and directon.
   The ACW was fought by the North in order to preserve the Union; by the South to preserve state's rights. These rghs included slavery. So in reality the flag itself has nothing to do with slavery and should b e awarded respect, but it  has beome a rally point for some.
Regards,
John
« Last Edit: July 01, 2015, 01:35:03 PM by John D. Bartleson Jr. »

Lazouave

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 114
    • Email
Boycotting NASCAR now! Guess I already was anyway

Ever wonder who gets polled? Interesting the disparity in the numbers from the liberal media's polls
and others I see.

Yes, if you are wondering there are two flags flying in front of my house....USA and CSA.

Come and take it!

ETEX

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 814
What is so standard the liberal media, Sharpton's of the world and their followers attack only the "Battle flag" and not the 1st (Stars and Bars), 2nd (Stainless Banner) or 3rd (Blood-Stained Banner) National Flags of the Confederate States. If they knew history they would know the meanings of these flags but alas it would not make news or provide the soap box to distort history for their benefit. Seeing Dent's store should be on everyone's bucket list in life.

Lamar

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 132
    • Email
Here's what I'm currently flying.

I alternate a Bennington with the Guilford Courthouse.
I alternate a Stars & Bars, a Lee's Hdqrts Stars & Bars, a Bonnie Blue, and a Third National with the ANV.



emike123

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2348
    • Bullet and Shell
    • Email
I talked with someone who works in a tourist shop in Gettysburg.  The store received a 140lb shipment of Confederate flags yesterday and were almost sold out by day's end!

Lazouave

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 114
    • Email
Hoorah!

emike123

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2348
    • Bullet and Shell
    • Email
I always wanted a solid red t-shirt with just the white parts of this Big Red flag on the back.  I think it is a more subtle way of saying FU in that most folks don't know what it means, plus I had a lot of relatives who went to The Citadel and my Mom's side of the family is from South Carolina.

Carl, if you can get your lovely and graphically talented wife to photoshop out just the white pieces and save it, I'll upload the white artwork it to UberPrints and make us some red t-shirts to wear to the Charleston Show!


Lamar

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 132
    • Email
Carl, if you can get your lovely and graphically talented wife to photoshop out just the white pieces and save it, I'll upload the white artwork it to UberPrints and make us some red t-shirts to wear to the Charleston Show!

Are you taking orders?

emike123

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2348
    • Bullet and Shell
    • Email
Sure, I figure they'll be a bit cheaper if we get a batch, but it all depends on getting Bev or someone similarly talented to help with the artwork.  I couldn't manage with my rudimentary photo editing software and gave up earlier today after wasting a bunch of time trying unsuccessfully to edit a white picture (not at all sure how people do it actually)

CarlS

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2475
    • Email
I'm sure I can.  She's up at Pikes Nursery buying plants so I'll check on her return.
Best,
Carl

redbob

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 386
    • Email
Ok, I'll bite; what does it mean?

jonpatterson

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 267
    • Email
The Citadel Battery Flag  AKA "Big Red" flag.

On January 9, 1861, cadets from the South Carolina Military Academy, known today as The Citadel, arguably fired the first shots of the Civil War when they prevented the Star of the West from resupplying Union troops at Fort Sumter. Above their battery on Morris Island, the cadets flew a red banner emblazoned with a white palmetto and crescent presented to them by the family of local flag maker Hugh Vincent.
It is history that teaches us to hope.

Robert E. Lee

redbob

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 386
    • Email
Now I know, thank you.

emike123

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2348
    • Bullet and Shell
    • Email
What Jon wrote is accurate, but more information is that the crescent moon reversed to face opposite the normal direction was a symbol of secession on Civil War era South Carolina flags.  That's the subtle, perhaps too subtle!, part I was referring to above...
« Last Edit: July 06, 2015, 08:22:19 AM by emike123 »