2 Confederate Flags Are Returned to Alabama
By Allan W. Howey
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - On March 24 Tom Blackford of Edgecomb, Maine,
presented two original Confederate battle flags to the Alabama
Department of Archives and History (ADAH) in Montgomery. The
ceremony in the Milo B. Howard Auditorium was packed to standing
room only capacity.
A great number of Civil War groups were present to witness the
return of the 10th and 44th Alabama Infantry flags. Guests included
Alabama chapters of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and United
Daughters of the Confederacy, the Civil War Round Table Associates
of Birmingham, and the 33rd Alabama Infantry reenactment group.
Allan Howey, Barry Winn and Glenn Winn represented the Maj.
Gen. James H. Wilson Camp, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil
War. Another Wilson Camp member, Barry Spink, served in the
ceremonial Confederate honor guard. Master of Ceremonies Bob
Bradley, ADAH curator, introduced the groups mentioned and talked
about prior returns of Confederate flags to Alabama.
Although the US War Department wanted to return all captured
Confederate flags to the Southern states in 1888, it was not
until 1905 that Secretary of War (later president) William Howard
Taft sent the banners home. However, this did not include all
Confederate flags captured during the Civil War. Some flags
remained in the possession of Northern state governments and
still others were kept by individuals.
Since then, most of these flags have been returned. For example,
in the early 1940s, the descendants of Union officer Joshua
Chamberlain returned two Confederate flags, and in 1972, the
State of Ohio returned the flag of the 22nd Alabama Infantry.
Bradley then discussed Alabama's flag preservation efforts.
For over seven decades, the state's collection of returned Confederate
flags was on display, first in the State Capitol, and then the
Archives building. The flags were rolled up and stored in glass
display cases that lined the hallways. With no climate control,
the flags badly deteriorated over the years from light, humidity,
and even insects.
In 1986, the flags were removed from the display cases, and
over the next 10 years, they were laid flat and preserved in
special storage bins. Under the direction of curators Bob Bradley
and Bob Cason, and using money largely raised from the public,
notably at the annual Battle of Selma reenactment, many of the
flags have been restored. Three or four of the flags are on
display in an exhibit that rotates the flags to avoid damaging
them.
The story of the returned flags is an interesting and mysterious
one. On Dec. 30, 1863, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton authorized
the loan of two captured Alabama flags to the 61st New York
Volunteer Infantry. Union troops captured the 10th Alabama Infantry
flag at New Market Cross Roads on June 30, 1862, and the flag
of the 44th Alabama was captured at Antietam on Sept. 17 1862.
The flags were then displayed at the United States Sanitary
Commission Fair in Albany, N.Y., which began on Feb. 22, 1864,
and ran through March. Following the fair, however, the flags
disappeared, and their fate remained unknown until last year.
Somehow they ended up in the possession of a Union officer,
Capt. Joseph Brenton, who served in the Western Theater.
He preserved the flags and handed them down to his descendants.
The banners finally ended up with a school teacher and Revolutionary
War reenactor, Tom Blackford, who inherited them from his grandmother,
Edith Denny, when she died this past Jan. 23.
It was one of her last wishes that the flags be returned to
their rightful owners. Both flags are unmarked with any regimental
identification and were traced to the 10th and 44th Alabama
regiments using the U.S. War Department catalog numbers stenciled
on their borders. Both were made in 1862 and issued to units
in the Army of Northern Virginia; they are of the "second
wool bunting" issue, which means they have an orange-colored
border.
