"Before that day, the flag had served mostly as a military ensign or a convenient marking of American territory... and displayed on special occasions like the Fourth of July. But in the weeks after Major Anderson's surprising stand, it became something different. Suddenly the Stars and Stripes flew... from houses, from storefronts, from churches; above the village greens and college quads... [T]hat old flag meant something new. The abstraction of the Union cause was transfigured into a physical thing: strips of cloth that millions of people would fight for, and many thousands die for."