This flag is quite stunning. The story of the flag's history and restoration is very interesting. The time a project like this takes, the meticulous nature of the work is obviously a work of love for history. It is an honor to the Caroline Greys. "A remarkable banner, it bore a painting of the Confederate unit in fancy dress uniforms, exquisitely rendered on the dark blue fabric. It was grand, and refined, and captured the innocence of prewar pageantry."
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| The silk flag of the Caroline Greys bears a painting of the original Civil War recruits. The paint dried and curled, but the banner has been restored and is on display at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. Courtesy of Alan Thompson / For The Washington Pos |
By Michael E. Ruane / The Washington Post
In the summer of 1862 the men of Virginia’s Caroline Greys, having suffered the rigors of the first year of the Civil War, realized that their elegant silk flag was much too fine for the campfire and battlefield.
A remarkable banner, it bore a painting of the Confederate unit in fancy dress uniforms, exquisitely rendered on the dark blue fabric. It was grand, and refined, and captured the innocence of prewar pageantry.
So that July it was left for safekeeping at Richmond’s new Spotswood Hotel. If the Greys, organized in Caroline County, Va., didn’t survive the war, perhaps their flag might.
Over the next three years, the outfit was devoured in battle at places like Antietam, Drewry’s Bluff and Dindwiddie Court House. Only 11 men were left to surrender at Appomattox.
Their flag fared better, as they had hoped. But it, too, was eventually defeated, by the relentless assaults of time.
Last week, after a campaign waged with tweezers, tiny erasers and a humidifying gun, Richmond’s Museum of the Confederacy returned the once-tattered flag to display for the first time in 35 years.
In so doing, conservators preserved one of the most striking banners to survive the war and resurrected the Greys, who march again as they did in 1861, watched over by a smiling angel painted on silk.
The conservation also uncovered a forgotten mystery of the flag — a strangely altered numeral — and the signature of the flag maker, George Ruskell, which had been obscured by 150 years of grime.
“We had an idea that it was really a special and unique flag,” museum curator Catherine Wright said. “But it wasn’t until it was at the conservator and they went through the process of flattening and straightening it” that its real beauty was revealed.
The flag is 4 feet by 5 feet, trimmed in gold fringe. On the front, or obverse, side, is the painted Virginia state seal of a female warrior, the symbol of virtue, standing over a fallen tyrant whose crown has toppled off.
The reverse side shows 36 men, most dressed in dark gray uniforms with gold buttons, white belts and military caps topped with red pompons. Many faces appear somewhat distinct, and curators wonder if some might be miniature portraits.
The group is being led by two musicians in red jackets and light blue pants and a bearded man with a sword and epaulets who is clearly their commander.
Curators noted that the bearded figure resembles a photograph of the unit’s early commander, Robert Peatross.
Beneath a green ribbon that reads “Presented by the Ladies” in gold letters, the angel, reclining on a cloud, gazes down at the soldiers.
Underneath the portrait, a painted red ribbon reads “To the Caroline Greys, May, 1861.”
Over the years, curators said, the paint on the flag had deteriorated, shrinking and curling and tearing holes in the center so that both sides looked like a jumbled jigsaw puzzle.
Its condition was so bad that the flag had never been displayed in the museum’s new building, which opened in 1976, Wright said.
Few men survived
The Caroline Greys, later Company E of the 30th Virginia Infantry Regiment, got its flag on April 27, 1861, two weeks after the war began, according to a story a few days later in a Richmond newspaper.
About 70 men were in the company, according to the report, which was filed from Ruther Glen, a hamlet north of Richmond that still feels much as it probably did in 1861.
The Greys began as a militia group; it was formed Dec. 12, 1859, in response to the abolitionist John Brown’s attempt to spark a slave insurrection at Harpers Ferry, W.Va., two months before, the museum said.
Peatross was one of three members of his clan to join up.
The Mason brothers, Camillus, 23, a teacher, and Francis, 19, a student, also joined. Their father was a farmer who lived in a place nearby called White Chimneys, according to census records and a history of the 30th Virginia by Robert Krick.
Camillus was killed at the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. Francis was wounded there and sent home; he died in his father’s house two weeks later.
The Turner brothers of Ruther Glen — George, 22, William, 21, and Joshua, 18 e_SDHp— all joined the company on the same day in 1861. Joshua died of disease a few months later. William was killed at Antietam, where George was wounded.
Antietam, one of the war’s bloodiest battles, also claimed the Greys’ Thomas Blunt, a carpenter who was 25 at enlistment; Albert Dimue, 19; Louis Goldsby, 21; and Edwin Jackson, 25.
“Very few of the young men who left here came home,” said Susan Sili, a Caroline County historian.
Reassembling history
When the battered flag was delivered last year to Textile Preservation Associates in Ranson, W.Va., company President Cathy Heffner rejoiced.
Heffner, a veteran flag conservator, realized that despite the flag’s dreadful condition, almost all the pieces of the crumbled painting were there — twisted, curled and fragmented, but present on pieces of the flag silk.
All she had to do was “relax” the fragments with a humidifier, flatten them, and put the pieces back together like a puzzle.
“I could tell by the amount of folding and creasing that these pieces were going to open up and that there was going to be a substantial amount of flag left,” she said. “I was really excited.”
Once reassembled, the flag was sent for cleaning to Art Care Associates, of Frederick, Md., and painting conservator Nancy Pollak.
Using tweezers and a small eraser, she began meticulously cleaning each fragment, and then painting, with water colors, small paper patches to fill the few gaps.
In the process she discovered Ruskell’s name under the grime, which prompted a debate as to whether he was the painter, the flag maker or both.
She also stumbled upon the mysterious altered numeral. On the front of the flag, which bears the motto, “Presented to the Caroline Greys, May, 1860,” Pollak noticed that the zero in 1860 had originally been a 1, as in 1861.
The 1 had been switched to change the front date to 1860, while the date on the reverse side remained 1861.
Why?
County historian Sili believes she knows: The Greys “wanted to make it clear that they had been ready to fight a year beforehand.”
Unaware of the suffering that was ahead, she said, “they were pretty hot to fight.”
Original article is here.
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Thanks for standing up for the heritage of the American South!
Always a pleasure to post feeds about the South. Far as I am concerned the South never died and still is standing strong. In my view, the South has no need to 'rise again' as it has values, tradition, and history that is very relevant to yesterday, today and the future.
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