7 June—On this day in 1862 William Bruce Mumford became the first, last, and—to date—only person executed for treason against the United States. (The Taos Revolt treason executions weren’t really for treason because the executed insurgents were technically Mexican rather than American. John Brown was hanged for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia. And the Rosenbergs were fried for conspiracy to commit espionage.)

So poor Mumford was a native North Carolinian and pre-Civil War U.S. Army veteran living in New Orleans who didn’t own slaves probably because he couldn’t afford to keep them, being a well-known albeit unlucky and/or unskilled gambler. He was hanged after being tried and convicted by a U.S. military court in occupied New Orleans (which had been captured from the Confederacy only that May and remained in Federal hands for the remainder of the Civil War) for—incredibly—simply tearing down a U.S. flag and wearing a piece of it—even though there was no attempt by the kangaroo military court to determine whether New Orleans had actually been occupied when Mumford tore down the flag. (Robert E. Lee demanded that Union General Henry Halleck explain how an execution could have occurred for a crime committed before New Orleans was occupied but didn’t get a satisfactory explanation. Of course.)

Major General Benjamin “Beast” Butler, commander of the Union ground forces, issued this special order:

“William B. Mumford, a citizen of New Orleans, having been convicted before a military commission of treason and an overt act thereof, tearing down the United States flag from a public building of the United States [the New Orleans Mint, which closed in 1911], after said flag was placed there [on 26 May] by Commodore Farragut, of the United States Navy: It is ordered that he be executed according to sentence of said military commission on Saturday, June 7, inst., between the hours of 8 a.m. and 12 a.m. under the directions of the provost-marshal of the District of New Orleans, and for so doing this shall be his sufficient warrant.”

So just before noon on 7 June, Mumford was hanged in the courtyard of the mint itself, a place that Gen. Butler had decided, “according to the Spanish custom,” would be the ideal place. Quite a crowd attended the execution and Mumford spoke of his patriotism for the Confederacy and his love for what he considered the true meaning of the U.S. flag, a symbol he had fought for under in the Seminole Wars and the Mexican–American War.

Martyred as he was, William Bruce Mumford is considered a hero especially in Dixie. We’d go along with that. And Butler, evidently experiencing some guilt pangs, during his one term in the U.S. House of Representatives, helped Mumford’s widow find a job in Washington. And who knows how else? Butler went on to serve a year as governor of Massachusetts.

And it must be noted that during the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot insurrectionists tore down American flags, including one they made a point of throwing to the ground and replacing with a Trump campaign flag. The penalty for those acts of treason? “Full, complete and unconditional pardon.”

Bottom line: A flag—any flag—is nothing but a symbol and doing anything at all with one should in no way be construed as treason or anything like it. In 1989 and 1990 the U.S. Supreme Court essentially agreed, if only by a one-vote majority. And if the current SCOTUS malignant majority should get its maleficent hands on it, the First Amendment is out of luck . . .