The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-05-15
BANNERS OF BATTLE
SACRED RELICS OF NATIONS TIMES OF TRAGEDY.
Flags Taken in Conflicts Between the Wearcrs of the Blue and of the Grey--Tatters Which Tell
 of Heroic Combat.
Advertiser Bureau, Colorado Building. washfnrton Moy "A

Advertiser Bureau.
 Colorado Building. Washington, May l4.
 In an attic of the War Department building are some of the most sacred relics of the most tragic time of this | republics history. Piled in a mass on | the shelves around a room of ordinary size and lying in punches against the | flags of regiments and other organi- zations of the Union and the Confed crate armies that were used during the Civil War. Most of them are flags captured from the ~onfederates during the war or received from them at the | final equalization. The rest are flags of Union troops that had been captured | by the Confederates and retaken by the Federals.
 One must be callous or ignorant in. deed who could enter the room in such presence. inanimate. as 1t is, without | profoundly stirring sensations Many | of the flags are marked so as to indi- cate to what regiments or commands they belonged. Others are without iden- | tifying mark except as color or design may indicate for which side they were unfurled. All of .hem are faded and  tatters Some are full of holes, wheth- CT bul1et-marked or moth eaten no story may truly tell except one of their whole life. But there they are-the battle flags of the blue and the gray of 1S61-65. the star-spangled banner and the bonny blue flag, State flags, pen nants. guidons. the Stars and Stripes and the Stars and Bars: among them what were once beautiful banners of silk which first unfurled to the sum light in exquisite embroidieries disclos- ed the inspiring art loving feminine fingers wrought for gallant hands whose blood dyed stan and fabric ere their clasp was ioosened.
 The collection of Confederate flags Is richest in suggestion of sacrifice. Those that were the colors of regiments that were deprived of them early in the war may be distinguished by their texture. They were the silk flags. nearly all of them made and presented by the wives and sisters and sweethearts of the sol diers. The flags of the latter part of the war, when the cause of the South was losing and doomed, but still had gallant lives to give, are piteous me- mentos of the glorious pathos of the struggle. The silken beauties beneath whose shimmering folds the proud col- or guard marched away from home in the spring of 1861 soon grew rare among the gray-clad armies.
 The flags of costly fibre and rare em- broideries soon wore out, were shot to pieces or somehow lost. The ragged men in gray had little time for parade or pageantry with banners. They soon had to follow flags in tatters. and when there was nothing better to rally oTnfrhd hax Aa fhagr Aon aS S ever nearest answered the purpose. Not few of those Confederate flags show they were made of the crudest. cheap est stuff. many of them of red and white flannel from women's garments, but always fashioned into Stars and Bars, or the St. Andrews cross. The fiagstaffs were constructed of the rud- est makeshifts, made in the haste of campaigns when the ragged defend- CTS were sorely beset by ever-swarm- ing assailants. Some of the staffs are of scantling or sapling cuts; there is not among them all an unscarred stan.
 Now and anon what is best to be done with these relics of the Civil War is question that has been feeIingly dis cussed. and the discussion has some times provoked the expression of un- happy sentiment. It would seem that the war has been long enough, over for these flags to be brought to view as inspiring souvenirs which demonstra- ted to the world the incomparable val or and virtue of the American soldier. But they are still piled away in a sort of irreverert confusion in an attic of the War Department building and none may see them except by special permission.
 A few days ago two Texans were per mitted to look at the Confederate flags. One was a congressman, who had been too young to be a soldier in the Civil War, but who went to see the flags obedient to the request of a veteran constituent who had asked his repre- sentative to look up his old flag and kiss 1t for him. The other was vet eran who had worn the gray and fol- lowed a flag that was in this attic The congressman was Representative Gordon Russell and the former Confed- crate was Col. Robert A. Cowart of Dallas. They found what they sought Col. Cowart the flag of the 7th Geor- gia and MT. Russell his friends flag, 'fCleburne's battlefiag." The letter giv. en below from William W. Gibson county surveyor of Van Zandt county Texas, had prepared the two properly to appreciate their mission to the wal nag room. inc IOllOWlnB IS taker from MT. Gibson's letter to Congress. man Russell:
 T have just finished reading the Confederate Veteran for April. which has left me in somewhat pensive anC retrospective mood.
 Mention has been made of captured Confederate flags, and in this connec' tion I recall having seen list of cap tured flags held by the War Depart ment.. Among them was the flag of thu 9th and 7th Arkansas regiments. cap tured at the battle of Jonesboro, Ga In all the world there Is not and can not be an inanimate object half so deal to me as that old flag. From the con solidation of the two regiments jus after Murfreesboro to the fall of Jones boro we marched and fought under itl folds. At Liberty Gap. Chickamauga l Missionary Ridge RingR01d Dalton