The case of the missing flag

by

By James Breig

An officer rallies his troops with a flag during the Battle of Gettysburg (Image from Harper's Weekly)
An officer rallies his troops with a flag during the Battle of Gettysburg (Image from Harper’s Weekly)

The 150th anniversary of two significant battles of the Civil War – Gettysburg and Vicksburg – is fast approaching. Both occurred in July 1863, and both have fascinating flag stories connected to them.

Take the case of the stolen Confederate battle flag. It was carried by the 14th Louisiana Regiment, which consisted mostly of Polish immigrants. Originally, the unit was called Sulakowski’s Brigade.

Col. Zebulon York led the 14th Louisiana Regiment
Col. Zebulon York led the 14th Louisiana Regiment

The regimental flag, which kept troops together in the midst of chaotic fighting, waved during battles in Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania and Winchester, all in Virginia. It was also taken into the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, where the 14th lost nearly one-fourth of its ranks. The soldier who bore the flag, Frederick Sontag, was wounded during the fight. Concerned that it might be seized by Union forces, he concealed the standard under his shirt.

After the War Between the States, the flag was entrusted to a woman for safekeeping and didn’t return to the regiment’s veterans for about 25 years. It is said that the flag covered Jefferson Davis’s coffin in 1889.

Having survived battles and years of wear, the flag would suffer one final indignity: It was stolen in the 1980s by a volunteer at the New Orleans museum where it was housed.

The stolen Louisiana flag
The stolen Louisiana flag

As a result, while the decades passed, the flag of the 14th was again hidden from view, not by a wounded trooper this time or a protective woman, but by a guilt-ridden thief. After he died, his family, unaware that it had been stolen, sold the banner to a Civil War collector in Virginia.

Then the FBI’s Art Crime Team received a tip about the whereabouts of the flag. When the innocent collector was told about the theft, “he fully cooperated,” said an agent, and the historic cloth was returned to the Civil War Museum at Confederate Memorial Hall in New Orleans, where it joined a collection of more than 140 other historic flags.

An historian who helped to make the turnover possible said, “I know the men [of the 14th] are smiling down from heaven.”

They might also be laughing in gleeful astonishment at the value assigned to their historic but threadbare flag: $250,000.

James Breig is a veteran author who specializes in history. His most recent book is “Star-Spangled Baseball: True Tales of Flags and Fields” about the links between the sport and flags. He is also the author of a nonfiction book about WWII, "Searching for Sgt. Bailey: Saluting an Ordinary Soldier of World War II" and co-author of "The Mystery of the Multiple Mothers," a novel. All three are available at www.amazon.com. His articles have appeared in newspapers and national magazines, including the Colonial Williamsburg Journal (search for them at www.history.org/journal) and History Magazine. He has won many national awards for his opinion writing, media columns and feature articles.

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