Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-11
Continued from Third Page.

of War to the Military Academy at West Point
and by the Secretary Of the Navy to Annapolis.
Other appropriations were made from time
to time by CongreSs-and speut--for the mend
ing and restoration of these precious relics and
for the proper cases in which the most valuable
could be displayed The West Point museum
therefore, can show many captured flags dating
from the Revolution, and in the chapel hang
row on row of cherished flags which have seen
service with different regiments of the United
States Army.
At the Naval Academy the collection of flags
includes not only such trophies as the British
flags taken by "Old Ironsides" from the Guer-
riere and the Java, and Spanish flags from
Manila Bay, but Perry's great battle flag used
at Lake Erie, the first United States ensign
hoisted in Japan, and the ensign flown during
the World War at the headquarters at Brest
of the United States naval forces in France.
THE disposition of Civil War trophies and
memorials presented a difficult problem,
but resulted, at least for time, In what Ad-
miral Preble described in 1872 as 1.-The Flag
Museum of the War Department in Washing
tom This museum occupied two small rooms
on the first floor Of a house on Seventeenth
street opposite the War Department, and was
open to the public. In the front room were
stored 236 Union flags found in the Confederate
War Department at Richmond after the sur
render, when they were boxed up and sent to
Washington for preservation.
In the rear room were 544 Confederate flags
taken by the United States troops. making a
total of $50 Civil War flags in the custody Of
the War Department. An inventory Of the
flags was made at this time, together with
description and brief history of the capture of
those which could be identified as belonging
to particular regiments or other organizations.
We find in 1874 that some of these flags
were displayed In the Ordnance Museum, then
located in the Winder Building: but eight
years later all the flags were boxed and stored
first in the subbaSement, afterward in the
attic, of the new State, War and Navy Building.
In the latter part of the eighties an attempt
was made to have all the flags, both Federal
and Confederate, returned to the authorities
of the respective States where they originated.
1t was claimed that the old resolution calling
for the collection and exhibition of "enemy
standards" should not apply to trophies OF
interstate warfare, but the entire country was
not yet ready to agree to the idea of restitution.
COON after the close of the Civil War, the
flags which the volunteer regiments of the
North had carried throughout the conflict
were for the most part installed with appropri-
ate ceremonies in the respective State Capitol
buildings in order, as Connecticut orator
expressed it, ito honor the memory Of the
brave men who died under the Stars and
Stripes, without insult to the brave men who
died under the Stars and Bars"
Pennsylvania Hall of Flags at Harrisburg
was a notable example, where nearly 400 ban
ners were hung from brackets along the side
walls and from high pedeStals in the center of
the room.
When the CAPTURED Confederate banners were
returned in 1905 they. too, found honored place