The Other Confederate Prisoner Held Hostage.

    In 1863, the Federal army executed two Confederate prisoners from the 4^th Kentucky Cavalry at Johnson’s Island. After their capture in Northern Kentucky, the district commander, Ambrose Burnside, authored an executive order dictating that men captured recruiting behind the lines were be treated as spies, tried, and, if found guilty, executed. The execution of the two Confederates led to the selection of two Federal officers imprisoned in Richmond for retaliatory measures. Upon catching word of these upcoming executions, Federal officials then selected two Confederate officers to be held as hostages should the Confederates carry out their plans. One of those Confederate officers was Rooney Lee, Robert E. Lee’s son. The other was a Confederate captain. You can learn more about the background of this story here, here, and here.

Capt. Robert Tyler (findagrave)

   Federal General-in-Chief Henry Hallack, writing to his agent for exchange of prisoners, Col. William H. Ludlow, on July 15, 1863, stated that upon receiving news of the execution of the two Federals, he was to “hang General [W.H.F.] Lee and the other rebel officer designated” previously.[1] A month later, that officer was identified as Captain Winder.[2] In October 1863, Col. William Hoffman wrote to Ludlow, asking where Winder was confined. Ludlow confessed that he did not know. Ludlow had been told that the other was a “Captain Winder.”[3]

   Except, Hoffman confessed in November, the Federal government held no Confederate officer by the name of Winder as a prisoner of war. Official Records, Series II, 6:448. On October 8, 1863. Capt. Robert H. Tyler, 8^th Virginia Infantry, wrote from Carroll Prison to the Confederate Commissioner for Exchanger of Prisoners, wanting to know why he was being held in close confinement. The commander of the prisoner where he was held did not know the answer.[4] Writing on November 9, Hoffman confessed that it was not Winder who being held, but it was Tyler who was being held as a hostage.[5] Hoffman knew this, having signed the order to hold Tyler in close confinement on July 16, 1863.[6]

   Robert H. Tyler was born in Leesburg, Virginia, in 1838. He enlisted on May 8, 1861, at Haymarket, Virginia, and was elected first lieutenant of Company C, 8^th Virginia Infantry. On June 3, 1862, Tyler was promoted to captain. He was captured on May 15, 1863, and taken to the Old Capital Prison in Washington, D.C.  In December 1863, he was transferred to Fort Lafayette. After several months at Fort Lafayette, he was moved to Fort Monroe, on March 3, 1864, then on March 11, to City Point for parole. Tyler was captured a second time on April 6, 1865, at Sailor’s Creek, Virginia, sent first the Old Capital Prison in Washington, then on April 21, sent to Johnson’s Island. Tyler was released after taking the Oath of Allegiance on June 20, 1865. While it appears that Tyler was in the hospital a couple of times during the war for illness, he was never wounded.[7]

   Known as “The Bloody Eighth,” the 8^th Virginia Infantry was composed of men largely from Loudoun, Fauquier, Prince William, and Fairfax Counties. They were mustered into service at the fairgrounds in Leesburg on May 8, 1861. Eppa Hunton, later a brigadier general, was the regiment’s first colonel. Their first combat experience came at Manassas in July 1861. Other engagements included Ball’s Bluff, Williamsburg, Seven Pines, the Seven Days, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, Hatcher’s Run, and Sailor’s Creek. The regimental historian wrote that the 8^th Virginia “died that day at Sayler’s Creek.” There were only eleven members of the 8^th Virginia left to surrender at Appomattox.[8] The 8^th Virginia served in the brigades of Philip St. George Cocke, George W. Pickett, Richard B. Garnett, and Eppa Hunton.

   Tyler returned to Northern Virginia, serving in the Virginia House of Delegates. At his death, the Richmond Dispatch noted that Captain Tyler “was one of the most gallant soldiers of the Confederacy . . . While a prisoner of war he was at one time with General W.H.F. (“Rooney”) Lee put into solitary confinement, to be executed in case certain prisoners held by the Confederate authorities were put to death. But this did not occur, they were eventually exchanged.”[9] Tyler died in 1902 and is buried in the Tyler Family Cemetery, Haymarker, Virginia.

 

---

[1] Official Records, Series II, 6:118.

[2] Official Records, Series II, 6:219.

[3] Official Records, Series II, 6:358.

[4] Official Records, Series II, 6:362.

[5] Official Records, Series II, 6:488.

[6] Tyler, CMSR, NA

[7] Tyler, CMSR, NA

[8] Divine, 8^th Virginia Infantry, 1-38.

[9] Richmond Dispatch, January 28, 1902.

Robert E. Lee’s son Rooney slated for execution

   Behind-the-ranks drama played out in mid-1863. Two Kentucky cavalrymen, William F. Corbin and Thomas J. McGraw, were caught in Kentucky recruiting for a new company. The district commander, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, quickly issued an order, stating that anyone caught recruiting “behind the lines” was to be treated as a spy and executed. Confederate officials in Richmond ordered the commander of Libby Prison to select two captured Federal officers to execute in retaliation. With word passing between the lines of the measure, Federal General in Chief Henry Hallack ordered two additional Confederate officers to be held, ready for execution, if the Confederates carried through with their plans. You can read more of this back story here and here.

   One of the Confederate officers selected for retaliatory measures was Robert E. Lee’s son, Rooney Lee. William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, called Rooney by his family, was born May 31, 1837, at Arlington, the third son of Robert and Mary Custis Lee. He attended Harvard University, but withdrew before graduating, being commissioned as a lieutenant in the 6^th United States Infantry in 1857. He served two years in Utah and California before resigning and farming at “White Hall,” on the Virginia Peninsula.[1]

   Rooney was commissioned a captain of cavalry in May 1861, rising to the rank of colonel, 9^th Virginia Cavalry, by April 1862. He was extremely active in many of Stuart’s escapades, from the ride around McClellan, the Seven Days, and at Turner’s Gap in the Maryland Campaign. Twice, Stuart recommended Lee for promotion to brigadier general, a promotion which finally came in November 1862. Lee commanded a brigade composed of the 2nd North Carolina Cavalry, 9^th, 10^th, 13^th, and 15^th Virginia Cavalry. Lee battled Stoneman during the Chancellorsville campaign. 

W.H.F. Lee

   While fighting on June 9, 1863, at Brandy Station, Rooney was wounded in the thigh. Robert E. Lee instructed that his son be taken to the Hill Mansion in Culpeper, when he visited him that evening. The next day, Rooney was taken to Hickory Hill, the home of his wife’s family, in Hanover County. Rob, Robert E. Lee’s youngest son, took Rooney to Hickory Hill, where they were joined by their mother and two sisters. Members of the 11^th Pennsylvavia Cavalry paid Hickory Hill a visit on June 26, capturing Rooney and incarcerating him at Fort Monroe the following day.[2]

   Rooney Lee’s arrival at Fort Monroe coincided with the debate regarding retaliation for the plight of the Kentucky Confederates. The names of two Federal captains imprisoned at Libby Prison were drawn on July 6, and word passed to Lt. Col. William H. Ludlow. Ludlow obviously informed his superior, for on July 12, he recommended that two Confederate officers who were prisoners of war be selected for retaliation if the two Federals were executed. On July 15, Henry Halleck ordered Ludlow to “immediately place General W.H.F. Lee and another officer selected by you not below the rank of captain, prisoner of war, in close confinement and under strong guard, and that you notify Mr. R. Ould…that if…Sawyer…and…Flinn… or any other officers or men in the service of the United States not guilty of crimes punishable with death by the laws of war, shall be executed by the enemy, the aforementioned prisoners will be hung in retaliation.”[3]

   Robert E. Lee learned about his son’s capture on July 7, while on the way back from the Gettysburg campaign.[4] Word of the holding of Rooney Lee and another officer spread via newspapers. “Prominent Rebel Officers Held as Hostages,” reported one Massachusetts paper. While the newspaper had the wrong Lee – it was G.W.C. Lee and not Fitz Hugh Lee, the paper reported that the officers “were removed from the McClellan hospital to Fortress Monroe, and placed in a casemate under guard, and notice sent to the rebel government that if they executed Capts. Sawyer and Flynn, whom they now have in close confinement and under sentence in Richmond, that Gen. Lee and Capt. Winder will be executed in retaliation.”[5]

   The Daily Richmond Whig reported that the execution of Lee and the other officer took place, then “the black flag will be immediately raised in every army, and the war will be horrible but short.”[6] Tensions remained high through August. Ludlow still believed that Sawyer and Flinn could be executed.[7]

  Of course Robert E. Lee and other members of his family, include Rooney’s wife Charlotte, were worried about the wounded officer. On August 2, 1863, Lee wrote Mary that he had heard that Rooney was up walking around on crutches. Charlotte was planning to try to visit Rooney at Fort Monroe, but Lee counseled against it. “The only way of accomplishing it is to get permission from Mr. Secretary Stanton in Washington through Mr. [Robert] Ould to take the flag of truce boat to Old Point. I do not think he would grant it in her case. It having been refused to others, which they would not feel as much objection in obliging, & I believe their permission is always coupled with the obligation to take the oath of allegiance to the U.S.”[8]

   Rooney’s confinement at Fort Monroe brought problems for the officers in charge. Local ladies weekly brought baskets of delicacies to Rooney.[9] Brig. Gen. S.D. Meredith complained in November 1863 that Rooney needed to be moved to some other “point where he will not be lionized as he is here. No prisoner of ours, whatever his rank, receives such treatment in Richmond.” It was recommended that Rooney be sent to Johnson’s Island, the same place where the two Kentucky officers were executed. The order for Rooney’s move to Johnson’s Island came on November 10. A day later, that order was changed and Rooney was sent to Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor.[10]

   Rooney’s wife, Charlotte Wickham, was never well, especially after Rooney was kidnapped by the Federals from her family’s home. Mary Chesnut, in her diary, recorded that Custis Lee, another of Robert E. Lee’s sons, even “offered himself to the Yankees in place of his brother, as he was a single man with no wife and children to be hurt by his imprisonment .   . . But the Yankees preferred Rooney.”[11] Charlotte died on December 26, 1863. Rooney was finally exchanged for Sawyer and paroled in March 1864. He rejoined the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia and was promoted to major general on April 23, 1864. When Wade Hampton, who replaced Stuart, transferred to South Carolina, Rooney commanded the Confederate cavalry south of the James River. Rooney Lee surrendered and was paroled at Appomattox.

   After the war, Rooney returned to farming, later serving as president of the Virginia Agricultural Society, then four years in the Virginia Senate, and several terms in the United States House of Representatives. He died in 1891. Jeffry Wert considered Rooney Lee “one of the finest generals in the cavalry corps of the Army of Northern Virgina.”[12]

 

 

---

[1] Davis, ed., The Confederate General, 4:65.

[2] Knight, From Arlington to Appomattox, 281, 286.

[3] Official Records, Series II, 6:118.

[4] Knight, From Arlington to Appomattox, 296.

[5] The Standard-Times, July 18, 1863.

[6] Richmond Daily Whig, July 14, 1863.

[7] Official Records, Series II, 6:219.

[8] Dowdey and Manarin, Wartime Papers, 567.

[9] Pryor, Reading the Man, 367.

[10] Official Records, Series II, 6:484, 485, 495, 500.

[11] Woodward, ed., Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, 450.

[12] Davis, ed., The Confederate General, 4:67.

Marking Lee’s Headquarters at Appomattox

A wooden board mark's Lee HQ

   Recently, I acquired a postcard of Robert E. Lee’s last headquarters at Appomattox. In the turn- of-the-century style, a board nailed to a tree marks the spot of Lee’s camp site. The post card is postmarked 1906, about two decades before the National Park Service acquired the property.

   Lee’s headquarters was about a mile east of Appomattox Court House. He spent the night of April 8, 1865, sans tent, sleeping under the stars with Longstreet, Fitz Lee, and John B. Gordon. Lee met with Grant the following day at the McLean House, surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia. The headquarters’ wagon arrived, and Lee’s tent was pitched. It was at this site that Lee’s headquarters’ flag was cut up, and where, in a wagon, General Order #9 was drafted, copied, and sent to the surviving corps and division commanders.

   There are not many descriptions of the camp compound. One came from Maj. Gen. Thomas F. McCory (US), who had known Lee during the war with Mexico. McCory recalled in 1888 that it was a challenge, but

“so favorable an opportunity may never again he presented, and would make the effort, so that we could have it to say that we spoke with the great Confederate General. The way to Lee’s headquarters we did not know, but we rode along the great rode leading through the Confederate camps, and as we advanced made inquerry, and for some time received but little satisfaction, but at length met an officer who very courteously said that Lee’s headquarters would be found ‘right out that road.’ Following the direction some distance in a wood we soon found ourselves in the midst of headquarters tents. On the right of the road we saw one of our Major-Generals, an old army officer, sitting beneath a tent-fly waiting for an interview with Lee. A little further on we noticed an officer in full uniform of the Confederate color standing before a fire in front of his tent, and I at once said to my companion that it was General Lee, whom I immediately recognized, although I had not seen him for nearly twenty years. It was suggested that we ride a little aside, hitch up our horses, and go right up to the General and not attempt a formal approach in the red tape style, or we might fail in our purpose.”[1]

   McCoy detailed his conversation with Lee, yet provided no other descriptions of the camp. One Tar Heel recalled that on the night of April 9, the regimental band of the 4^th North Carolina Infantry visited Lee’s headquarters, serenading him. The entire regiment was present, and “Gen. Lee came out of his tent, gave his hand to all and bid them farewell.”[2]

   There was a movement to start marking various spots connected to historical events related to the war. For some places, like Gettysburg, that movement started in 1864 with the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association. For the most part, it was not until the late 1800s that the movement picked up traction. Veterans were visiting the fields where they had fought, some attempting to mark prominent positions with painted boards, often nailed to trees.

  Joseph W. Kirkley and Calvin D. Cowles visited Appomattox in 1892. Both Kirkley and Cowles worked on commission producing the Official Records and are the authors of the atlas that accompanied the volumes. What they discovered was that the Grand Army of the Potomac, a veterans’ organization for Federal soldiers, had purchased much of the property. The idea was that summer homes could be constructed for “members who desired to revisit leisurely the scene of the surrender.” The venture, however, had failed.[3] A new courthouse was being constructed down the road at Appomattox Station, and the McLean house had been disassembled for shipment to Washington, D.C. for display. “It became at once apparent that Appomattox was being robbed of its most interesting architectural feature, and the commissioners at once regretted that steps had not been taken to prevent this act of vandalism, and measures taken to have the McLean house made some sort of memorial hall in perpetuity.”

 

  Kirkley and Cowles could find only one man, George Peers, who had lived in the area during the eventful days of April 1865. Peers had been the clerk of court since 1860. Kirkley and Cowles filed their report, and there was some movement to mark the important positions. This included support from former Confederate general John B. Gordon.

   Plans were made to produce several iron signs, much like those at Chickamauga. One sign denoted where Confederate artillery fired their last shot on the morning on April 9, 1865; another the apple tree that Lee and Grant met under on the morning of April 10; and yet another denoted the site of Lee’s final headquarters. These were apparently all in place by 1893.[4]

   But to the postcards, which still have the wooden sign image. These were apparently printed prior to 1893. Maybe they were made to support the failed Grand Army of the Republic enterprise.

---

[1] The Free Lance-Star, June 5, 1888.

[2] The Charlotte Observer, March 17, 1895.

[3] The Times-Picayune, November 24, 1893.

[4] The Times-Picayune, November 24, 1893.

Breckinridge, Lee, Johnston, and the end of the War.

   When the surrender of the two principal Confederate armies is discussed, those conversations focus on two sets of interactions: Robert E. Lee and U.S. Grant at Appomattox and Joseph E. Johnston and William T. Sherman at the Bennett Place. Hovering around the periphery of those discussions is John C. Breckinridge. In the final days, he counselled both Lee and Johnston.

   John C. Breckinridge kind of slips through the cracks of history. While there are scores of biographies on Lee and Johnston, there are only three on Breckinridge. Born in Kentucky, he graduated from Transylvania University, practiced law, and served as an officer in the 3^rd Kentucky Volunteers during the war with Mexico. Breckinridge served two terms as a Kentucky legislator, two terms in the U.S. House, as Vice President of the United States under President James Buchanan, and was serving in the U.S. Senate after his term as Vice President expired. Described as not being a “proponent of secession or of extreme state rights views,” he did run against the Lincoln-Hamlin ticket as a Democrat in 1860.[1]

   Breckinridge might just be the most widely-traveled of Confederate generals. Commissioned as brigadier general in November 1861, he saw service in Kentucky, fought at Shiloh, was promoted to major general in April 1862, was in Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, Port Hudson, and at Murfreesboro. In 1863, he led a division at Jackson, Chickamauga, and a corps at Chattanooga. Breckinridge then moved east, leading the Confederate forces at New Market in May 1864, Cold Harbor, and then back to the Shenandoah Valley to defend it against attacks by Federals, eventually leading a corps under Early’s command during the march on Washington, D.C. In January 1865, Breckinridge became the sixth and last Confederate Secretary of War.

Breckinridge, Lee, and Johnston. (LOC)

   Following the breakthrough of Confederate lines below Petersburg on the morning of April 2, 1865, Richmond was abandoned. Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Cabinet boarded the last train out of Richmond that night, leaving the city a blaze. Breckinridge was not with the group. He rode out of the city early on the morning of April 3. Breckinridge took command of a wagon train moving toward Amelia Court House, having at least one brush with Federal cavalry. In Farmville on the night of April 6 or morning of April 7, Breckinridge found Lee and discussed events, with Lee wishing Breckinridge to deliver a message to President Davis.[2]

   While it is not known what all they discussed, Breckinridge does write Davis on April 8. Amelia Court House was occupied by the Federals on April 5; some 800 Federals had been captured near Rice’s Station on April 6; serious Confederate losses had been sustained-- “High Bridge and other points.” It was Lee’s plan to try and get to North Carolina, Breckinridge wrote. He then outlines the disposition of a few other Confederate commands, like Lomax and Echols. “The straggling has been great, and the situation is not favorable,” Breckinridge concluded. Was surrender something that the two had discussed?[3]

   Breckinridge rode toward the south, escaping Federal troops encircling Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee surrendered on April 9 at Appomattox Court House. On April 11, the day after Davis moved south to North Carolina, Breckinridge arrived in Danville. He set out the following day and reached Davis, meeting with the president at the home of John Wood. It was Breckinridge that brought the official word of Lee’s surrender. That night, Breckinridge met with Joseph E. Johnston.[4]

   According to Johnston, it was his opinion, along with that of P.G.T. Beauregard, that the “Southern Confederacy was overthrown.” Johnston told Breckinridge this and believed that it was Davis’s responsibility to exercise this “power . . . without more delay.” Breckinridge promised to give Johnston the floor to express this view. Johnston was given the opportunity and told the president “that under such circumstances it would be the greatest of human crimes for us to attempt to continue the war.” Davis asked for the views of his cabinet, with Breckinridge, Stephen Mallory, Secretary of the Navy, and John H. Reagan, Postmaster General, concurring. Only Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin held out hope. Davis agreed to allow Johnston to begin talks with Sherman.[5]

   Davis, with the Confederate cabinet, including Breckinridge, set out from Greensboro, heading to Charlotte, on April 15. Breckinridge was with Davis, and, on the following day, learned that Johnston and Sherman had opened talks. Johnston and Sherman began meeting at the Bennett Farm near Durham, and Johnston wanted Breckinridge to help with the negotiations. It was Johnston’s plan (and Davis’s) that the civil departments be surrendered as well. Not reaching a conclusion at the end of the first day, Johnston requested that Breckinridge join him. Breckinridge arrived, along with Reagan, and joined Johnston in drafting a surrender proposal. When Johnston returned to the Bennett Farm, Breckinridge was also there, and it was Johnston’s idea that Breckinridge join the negotiations. Sherman demurred. Breckinridge was one of those civil officials. Johnston reminded Sherman that Breckinridge was also a major general in the Confederate army, and Breckinridge joined in the debate. Eventually, terms were reached on April 18 and sent to various presidents.[6]

   While standing in the yard of the Bennett farm, waiting for copies of the documents to be made, Sherman took Breckinridge aide. Sherman told Breckinridge that “he had better get away, as the feeling of our people, who had as such announced Mr. Lincoln,  of Illinois, duly and properly elected the President of the United States, and yet that he afterward openly rebelled and taken up arms against the Government. He answered me that he surely would give us no more trouble, and intimated that he would speedily leave the country forever.”[7] Of course, Breckinridge would leave the country, heading to Cuba first, then Great Britian and Canada, before a tour through Europe. Upon being assured that he was covered under President Andrew Johnson’s Amnesty Proclamation of December 1868, Breckinridge returned to Kentucky. He died in Kentucky in 1875.

   Breckinridge’s council with Joseph E. Johnston is well documented. While what Breckinridge and Lee discussed in Farmville on April 7 is seemingly lost to history, the pair had met frequently after Breckinridge assumed the office of Secretary of War, including a three-day stint after Breckinridge failed to get the Confederate senate to pass a resolution demanding Davis open negotiations with Lincoln. Historian William C. Davis, in an essay on the roles of Breckinridge, Lee, and John A. Campbell, believes that, at that Farmville meeting,  Breckinridge and Lee possibly outlined what Lee could do if he was cornered and forced to surrender.[8]  

 

---

[1] Davis, The Confederate General, 1:127.

[2] Knight, From Arlington to Appomattox, 494; Davis, Breckinridge, 507.

[3] OR, Vol. 46, pt. 3, 1389.

[4] Davis, Breckinridge, 509.

[5] Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, 397-99.

[6] Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, 400-405.

[7] Sherman, Personal memoirs, 2:353-54.

[8] Davis, “Lee, Breckinridge, and Campbell,” in Janney, Petersburg to Appomattox, 155.

Surrendered, Smuggled, or Severed? The Battle Flags of the ANV and the AOT at Appomattox and the Bennett Place.

37th Alabama Infantry

   Back in January/February 1987, an article appeared in Confederate Veteran magazine about the flag of the 37^th Alabama Infantry. As the story goes, that flag escaped surrender twice. After the regiment was surrendered at Vicksburg, the flag was secreted away, folded up in the saddle blanket of Col. James F. Dowdell’s horse. Then after the surrender of the regiment at Greensboro, the flag was “smuggled out of Greensboro” by a Captain Johnson. The flag remained in various families until it was donated to Auburn University and is today in the Alabama Room at Auburn.[1]

   The surrender terms worked out between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, stipulated that “arms, artillery, and public property” were to be stacked and turned over to an officer designated by Grant. Likewise, the final terms worked out between Joseph E. Johnston and William T. Sherman at the Bennett Place on April 26, 1865, specified once again that  “public property” had to be turned over to an ordinance offer of the United States army. Since flags were issued by the government, they would be considered public property. But like the story above regarding the flag of the 37^th Alabama, not all flags were surrendered. Some were, but others were secreted away, while others were destroyed by Confederate soldiers.

61st Virginia Infantry 

   Federal General John Gibbon wrote on April 13, 1865, that 71 Confederate flags were surrendered at Appomattox.[2] Most of the descriptions of the surrender of flags come from the Federals. One Federal wrote that the Confederates seemed to hate to give up their flags more than anything else. Many kissed the flags with tears in their eyes.[3] Federal General Joshua L. Chamberlain, supervising the stacking of arms, wrote that “Then, slowly and with a reluctance that was appealingly pathetic, the torn and tattered battleflags were either leaned against the stacks or laid on the ground.”[4] However, one North Carolinian wrote that the flags were placed on the stacks, not on the ground.[5] Among those surrendered include the flags of the those of the 5^th, 48^th, and 60^th Alabama Infantry regiments; the 13^th, 15^th, and 28^th North Carolina regiments, and the 61^st Virginia Infantry. A few Army of Northern Virginia flags were secreted away. Ensign Emanuel Rudisill, 16^th North Carolina State Troops, sewed his regiment’s silk battle flag inside the lining of his coat and brought it home.[6] Likewise the flags of the 2^nd South Carolina Infantry, 12^th South Carolina Infantry, 38^th North Carolina Troops, and 25^th North Carolina Troops were not surrendered and were brought home. The flag of the 14^th South Carolina Infantry was concealed under a rock before the surrender, and was later retrieved.[7] A few flags, like the headquarters flag of Robert E. Lee, and the flags of the 23^rd and 24^th Virginia Regiments, were not surrendered or brought home, intact. Instead, they were cut up and the pieces distributed among the paroled soldiers.

It was a different scenario with the Army of Tennessee. Instead of being boxed in like the Army of Northern Virginia, the various Confederate regiments in North Carolina were spread out, from Greensboro to High Point to Salisbury, even Charlotte. There were no formal surrender ceremonies. Instead, artillery was parked and some regiments stacked some of their arms, although Confederates were allowed to keep some of their weapons. Very few flags were surrendered. A report from the New York Herald noted that “We have got very few battle flags or horses.”[8] Many of the Army of Tennessee soldiers concealed their flags to take home. The third bunting issue Army of Northern Virginia flag of the 26^th Alabama Infantry (the regiment served in both the ANV and the AOT) was wrapped around the body servant of Dr. Hayes, the brigade surgeon, and brought back to Alabama.[9]

3rd Tennessee Infantry

The flag of the 49^th Tennessee was concealed on the person Robert Y. Johnson, only to be forcibly taken by Federals when the group reached Lenoir City, Tennessee.[10] Other flags that were concealed and brought home include those of the 3^rd, 7^th, 10^th, 12^th, 16^th, and 24^th South Carolina Infantry, 20^th, 33^rd, 34^th, 36^th, and 40^th Alabama Infantry; 8^th and 17^th North Carolina Troops; 3^rd, 4^th, 6/9^th, 11^th, 13^th, 18^th/26^th, 24^th, 32^nd, and 49^th Tennessee Infantry regiments; 7^th Florida Infantry; 9^th Arkansas Infantry; and 1^st and 42^nd Georgia Infantry regiments. Some flags, such as those of the 7^th and 58^th North Carolina Troops, 1^st Tennessee, and 7^th South Carolina Battalion, were cut up and the pieces distributed to the remaining members. A member of the 2^nd Tennessee Cavalry recalled cutting their flag up into 160 pieces.[11] A member of the 47^th Georgia recalled cutting up their flag,  concealing the pieces in a saddle blanket and setting off to the Trans-Mississippi department.[12] Except for the flag of the 26^th Tennessee Infantry, it is not clear if any other flags were surrendered by the Army of Tennessee, and this banner could have been captured at the battle of Bentonville.[13]

This post just barely scratches the surface of Confederate battle flags and the last month of the war. Unless it is hidden away at the National Archives, there does not seem to be a list of Confederate flags that were captured, destroyed, surrendered, or secreted home through the months of April and May 1865. What a project! 

---

[1] Golden, “The 37^th Alabama Flag,” Confederate Veteran (January-February 1987): 24-25.

[2] Official Records, 46, pt.3, 734.

[3] Cauble, The Surrender Proceedings, 95-96.

[4] Chamberlain, “Last Salute,” 362.

[5] Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, 3:77.

[6] Dedmondt, The Flags of Civil War North Carolina, 100.

[7] Dedmondt, The Flags of Civil War South Carolina, 106.

[8] New York Herald, May 9, 1865.

[9] Dedmondt, The Flags of Civil War Alabama, 80.

[10] Cox, Civil War Flags of Tennessee, 361.

[11] Cox, civil War Flags of Tennessee, 431.

[12] Dunkerly, The Confederate Surrender at Greensboro, 116.

[13] Cox, Civil War Flags of Tennessee, 294.