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Civil War Captured Flags (U.S.)

28th Virginia

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28th Virginia

The 28th Virginia flag was captured by the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg.

AFTER its capture...

First, after the flag was captured at Gettysburg it was turned over to the proper Union Army authorities who then sent the flag to the U.S. War Department for processing. This flag was received at the War Department and catalogued into a log book of other captured Confederate flags and assigned a WD number (as were all flags received by the War Department, in this case #58, which is clearly stenciled on the flag itself). Please note that not all captured CS flags ever made it to the War Department. Many went home with individual officers or soldiers and many were sent to Northern state governors.

Since the 28th Virginia flag was sent to the War Department, it then became the property of the Federal government as a spoil of war. Over the years after the war, these flags were sometimes lent out to various Union veterans groups for their reunions. This is what happened with the 28th Virginia flag. It was LOANED to the veterans of the 1st Minnesota (as entered in the WD captured log book, of which I have a copy) on the implicit instructions that the flag was to be returned to the War Department when they were done with their reunion. The Secretary of War did this with quite a few flags - most of which never came back either (and some are now lost while others were sold on the private market).

Mr. Caveness did some research into the "loaning" of these trophies and found that the Secretary of War did not have the legal authority to loan these flags - but did anyway.

That being said, the flag was a "loan" - not a "gift" to t