Confederate Memorial Day

About 10-15 people gathered in front of the South Carolina Statehouse on Friday morning as an assortment of Confederate flags flapped in the occasional breeze on the front lawn of the grounds, the tallest one at the former permanent location behind the Confederate Soldier Monument.

Billy Pittman, Commander of the Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, wears a grey wool hat and coat with a crossed black leather harness and belt. A canteen on his shoulder and a musket resting on the other, he stands at the intersection of Gervais and Main streets. He tells me that he has 24 ancestors who fought in the Civil War. Most were from North Carolina.

"Today is Confederate Memorial Day and I'm out here to remember the nearly 30,000 South Carolinians that died during that war,” says Pittman, “I’m a re-enactor and I do Confederate as well as Federal. I do a 7th South Carolina Confederate and I do a 137th New York Federal. I honor all the men who fought this war. The average foot soldier is beyond the politics.”

Regarding the controversies that surround the Confederate battle flag, Pittman says it has been hijacked. “The flag has been misused by groups, as has the American flag, but this flag obviously gets more attention and I will stand shoulder to shoulder against the misuse of that flag,” he says, “If they raise that flag for any other reason than to honor the men who fought that war, then they should put it down.”

Confederate Memorial Day is an official state holiday in South and North Carolina, observed on May 10, and in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia on the fourth Monday in April.

Photos and words by Sean Rayford

About the author: Sean Rayford is a South Carolina photographer known most for his work in photojournalism. He currently works with The New York Times, Getty Images, The Washington Post, NPR, AP and more.