COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Confederate flag that flies at the South Carolina Capitol could soon be making its last stand.

The South Carolina House will begin debating the flag’s fate today. If House members back a Senate bill to take the flag down, Gov. Nikki Haley could sign it into law before the end of the week and the flag would be removed and taken to the Confederate Relic Room.

But some House Republicans are saying not so fast, and plan to offer amendments that would preserve some kind of symbol in front of the Statehouse to honor their ancestors. One of them, Rep. Mike Pitts, said to banish all flags would be akin to erasing history, including that of his family members in Laurens County and the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia.

“I guess my plan for tomorrow is to be a lot like my ancestors were at the Bloody Angle,” Pitts said, referring to part of a Virginia battlefield where fighting raged for nearly 24 hours in 1864, leaving Confederate dead stacked four deep behind their fortifications. “And fight until I have nothing left to fight with.”

Pitts said his favorite amendment proposes flying the flag of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers regiment, a banner similar to the state flag with its Palmetto tree and crescent moon but with a wreath around the tree. Similar art is etched on a wall inside the Statehouse.

Any change to the Senate bill is unacceptable to the 46 Democrats in the 124-member House — a critical number because some Democrats will have to support any bill to take down the flag to reach the threshold required by law.