A day after a national holiday honoring war dead, Henry County commissioners are still sorting out how a request to remove the Confederate flag from a county-owned building turned into a major bout of finger pointing.
Commissioner Dee Clemmons said she asked the Nash Farm Battlefield museum, which is in her district, to remove Confederate flags from vantage points visible from the street. The museum's board maintains she told them to get rid of all relics and that she told them they had no significance. Clemmons denies this.
Also at issue is something more significant; whether the battlefield is actually a site where Union and Confederate troops clashed.
"After thorough research I can testify that this flag has no historical reason for being displayed on County property as it has no relevance to the undocumented battlefield," Clemmons wrote in a March 16 email to the full commission.
But more than 10 years ago, archaeologists found relics on the property that suggested otherwise. Excavations by the Lower Appalachian Mississippian Archaeological Research Institute of Savannah turned up sabers, bullets and guns. Archaeologists told the Georgia Trust's magazine "The Rambler," the relics were proof the farm had been the scene of several short and deadly battles and played a role in Sherman's March to the Sea.
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