Rediscovered Assassination Flag Is Displayed In Connecticut
From information supplied by The Connecticut Historical Society

HARTFORD, Conn. - The unveiling of a Lincoln assassination flag in Connecticut created national excitement and made front page news in the July 5 New York Times.

At a press conference that day The Connecticut Historical Society (CHS) announced that it had authenticated and restored one of five flags that decorated the Presidential Box at Ford's Theatre the night President Abraham Lincoln was shot.
According to published period reports, the Treasury Guard national flag was in the hands of Lincoln the moment he was shot by John Wilkes Booth. The rediscovered flag is the companion piece to the Treasury Guard's regimental flag - the flag which tripped Booth - now at Ford's Theatre National Historic Site in Washington, D.C.

In 1998, as part of its long-term collections development process, The Connecticut Historical Society (CHS) embarked on a systematic reassessment of its Civil War collections. The story of the assassination flags had caught the attention of the Civil War community in 1996 with the discovery of one of the other flags. As a result, when former CHS Acting Head Librarian Kelly Nolin, a Civil War historian, saw the documents accompanying the flag, she immediately recognized its significance. Preserved in the box with the flag was a separate small strip of blue silk with gold fringe, identified as part of the flag that caught Booth's spur, causing him to fall and break his leg. This strip matches the flag at Ford's Theatre.

"The flag was donated to the CHS in 1922, and proudly announced in the annual report for that year," said Dr. Susan P. Schoelwer, Director of Museum Collections. "In general, however, the institution's Civil War collections were not until recently a major focus of attention. Unlike many Civil War era flags, this one was not placed on permanent display, but was left undisturbed, in a locked box, in dark storage. As a result, it escaped the overexposure to light that has caused many period flags to disintegrate to virtually nothing."

The CHS Treasury Guard national flag was a regulation infantry flag with 13 alternating red and white stripes and a dark blue canton. It had become very dry and brittle, causing the silk to split and shred into fragments. The flag was left in its box and taken to Textile Conservation Workshop in South Salem, N.Y., for evaluation and treatment. There, conservators spent weeks humidifying the silk, then painstakingly arranged the tiny fragments in their proper positions on a supporting fabric which was in turn mounted on a frame inside a protective Plexiglas case.

The flag is an American flag, made of silk in 1864 by the Philadelphia firm of Horstmann Bros. The flag appears "backwards" because it was deliberately mounted to display its reverse, which carries on the canton the distinctive inscription identifying the flag as having been "Presented to Treasury Guard Regt. by the Ladies of the Treasury Dept. 1864." Thanks to the new custom-designed mount, the front of the canton is also visible, although the front side of the flag's stripes is obscured by the supporting fabric. The poor condition of the fabric makes it impossible to display both sides of the entire flag.

The Treasury Guard Regiment was formed in July and August 1864. Confederate advances in mid-July on the capital prompted President Lincoln to issue a call for government employees to form home guard units. According to surviving muster roles, the Treasury Guard regiment numbered almost 1000 men. The regiment did not see any active service and was officially disbanded in October 1865.

Female employees of the Treasury Department supported the war effort by presenting the Treasury Guard Regiment with two silk flags - a national color and a regimental color.

On the night of April 14, 1865, the two boxes that Lincoln and his party occupied at Ford's Theatre were decorated with borrowed flags. American flags were reportedly in short supply in the capital, and it is well established that the theater borrowed flags to decorate the Presidential box. The number of flags used, their specific identity, and their sources have long been a topic of controversy.

According to Lincoln assassination experts and Civil War historians, the most likely scenario is that five flags were used - four national flags and the blue Treasury Guard regimental flag. The regimental flag is generally believed to have hung from a staff fixed to the pillar between the boxes; two American flags were draped as bunting from the balustrade fronting each box, while the remaining two American flags hung at the outer sides of each box.

A re-creation of the full decoration of the box was set up on April 17, 1865, and recorded in photographs taken by the firm of Mathew Brady; one of Brady's photographs forms the basis for the present-day reproduction of the scene at Ford's Theater. Assassination experts generally agree that it was the Treasury Guard regimental flag now displayed at Ford's Theatre that tripped John Wilkes Booth. However, Schoelwer notes that an exciting new element has recently been added to the flag story as a result of a newspaper citation recently discovered by assassination historian Michael W. Kauffman.

According to Schoelwer, the story in the National Intelligencer for June 13, 1865 (page 3), identifies the Connecticut Treasury Guard national flag as "being in the grasp of the President when he was shot." Eyewitness accounts from the theater corroborate this story, with several stating that the flags obscured Lincoln's view, and one witness specifically testifying that he saw Lincoln holding the drapery out of his way just before the shooting.

The day after the shooting the Treasury Guard colors were returned to the Treasury Department, where they were displayed with great pride and a label pointing out the tear in the regimental flag, caused by Booth's spur. At some point, according to National Park Service records, the regimental flag passed into the possession of Emory S. Turner, former Major in the Treasury Guard Regiment. In 1932, it was donated to the National Park Service by Turner's daughter.
When the Treasury Guard regimental flag entered Turner's keeping, it effectively disappeared from public view. Popular attention shifted to the other Treasury Guard flag - the red, white and blue national flag. According to period newspaper accounts, it was placed on display in the Treasury Department beginning in 1872, after being rescued "from the machinist's shop in the basement of the building, where it had lain since 1865, uncared for."

The individual consistently credited with this rescue was Henry A. Cobaugh, who held the position of Captain of the Watch at the U.S. Treasury Department from 1871 until possibly as late as 1912.

Cobaugh hung this flag in his office until the early 1880s. Eventually, the crowds coming to see the flag became a nuisance, wearing out carpets and interfering with Cobaugh's work. He received permission to have the Treasury Department's cabinetry shop make a case for the flag, which was then locked in the case and displayed on a wall of the northeast corridor of the Treasury Building.

Around 1900, the fate of this flag became the subject of heated controversy after permission was given for the Treasury Guard national flag to be transferred to an unidentified private museum "devoted to Lincoln relics" in Washington, D.C. Some guard members objected that they weren't consulted while others felt it could be better cared for outside of Treasury where it was becoming moth-eaten.

Exactly how this controversy ended remains unclear. What is clear is that, by 1907, the Treasury Guard national flag had been returned to Cobaugh's custody at the Treasury Department. In January 1907, Cobaugh sent the flag to Edgar S. Yergason, a veteran of the 22nd Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry and collector in Hartford, Conn. (See related story.) From 1907 until 1920, the Treasury Guard national flag was a highlight of Yergason's extensive Civil War collection.

After his death in 1920, the flag was inherited by his son, Dr. Robert M. Yergason, who donated it to The Con-necticut Historical Society in 1922.

The Connecticut Historical Society presents the flag and its "Civil War Treasures" exhibit through Jan. 6. Museum exhibition hours are Tuesday-Sunday, 12 to 5 p.m. An exhibition website, www.civilwartreasures.com features detailed information on the exhibition assassination flag, a press room, and a Connecticut Civil War Tour with special discounts to area attractions.

The Connecticut Historical Society is located at One Elizabeth Street in Hartford's Historic West End. For more information, call (860) 236-5621 or visit online at www.chs.org.