Here's how an NPS-led team safely removed three Fort Sumter flags for a long rest. The big question now: Is it too risky to put 2 of them back at the fort?

Opening of Palmetto Guard flag mount (left) and removal of a Fort Sumter flag (NPS photos)

Anne E. Ennes, a conservator for the National Park Service’s Harpers Ferry Center, knows the value of planning before traveling to an historic site. Still, flexibility can be the name of the game once she arrives and handles some of America’s most-treasured artifacts.

Such was the case in mid-September when Ennes and other experts within the agency, working with contractors and professional art movers, painstakingly took three famous Fort Sumter flags off-exhibit for a much-needed rest from damaging light.

They worked with several variables smack dab in the middle of hurricane season. Two of the flags have been on display at the fort in Charleston’s Harbor, and getting them safely off the artificial island was part of a rather complex operation. None of the team members had previously handled the flags – they had been on display for nearly 30 years.

“The objects were immensely iconic and irreplaceable. We wanted this to go well. We had to go over by boat, dependent on weather, dependent on tides,” Ennes told the Picket. “You sweat out hurricane season.”

The gloved team over three days was able to de-install, roll and crate the fragile flags without causing damage.

US storm flag, top, garrison flag, lower left, Palmetto Guard (NPS)

The project got lucky with the weather but Ennes, a textile conservator who works at the center’s Museum Conservation Services, said she is in favor of reproduction flags – rather than the original 33-star storm flag and the Palmetto Guard flag – going back to the fort.

Fiercer hurricanes resulting from climate change, mixed with the challenges of moisture, humidity and storm surge in the Carolinas, make the museum on Fort Sumter a high-risk location for the flags, Ennes says. And a stable environment requires near-infallible air conditioning.

“You don’t want to deal with evacuating precious objects with a storm looming,” she said, adding it’s not her decision to make.

The Picket asked Brett Spaulding, chief of interpretation for Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park, about the fate of the flags, given risk factors raised by conservators.

“At this time there has not been a decision made as to where the future home of the flags will be,” Spaulding wrote in an email last autumn. “Before they are put back on display, we will take into consideration many of the points that you identified and other considerations.”

Workers prepare to remove garrison flag from flat case (NPS photo)

Spaulding said the flags will remain off display for a minimum of five years.

In a November Facebook post, the park provided a brief update, saying: “Textiles should not be on display for long periods of time due to humidity fluctuations and light damage.”

The storm and Palmetto Guard flags had been on exhibit at the Fort Sumter museum on the island in the harbor. The massive and brittle garrison flag, only a small portion visible, was at the Fort Sumter Visitor Center at Liberty Square in downtown Charleston.

These flags tell an important story

The three flags are powerful symbols of a nation torn apart and brought back together. Gunfire wasn’t their only enemy: high winds, saltwater spray, humidity and light took a toll. All underwent conservation before they went on display, but that was many years ago.

The flags are among the most famous of the Civil War. The 33-star U.S. garrison flag flew over the fort until it sustained wind damage on April 11, 1861, hours before Rebel artillery effectively began the Civil War. Its smaller and sturdier successor, the storm flag, flew during the 34 hours of the attack.

The garrison flag in Charleston rests in a special case (NPS photo)

Both were removed from the island by Union Maj. Robert Anderson after he surrendered. The storm flag immediately became a patriotic symbol for the remainder of the conflict and raised the status of the Star-Spangled Banner to what we know today.

The garrison and storm flags were issued by the quartermaster in June 1860, nearly a year before the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. The manufacturer of clothes, textiles and flags during that time was the Schuylkill Arsenal in Pennsylvania, said Spaulding. “However, the arsenal hired over 10,000 seamstresses and tailors during the Civil War so, unfortunately, we don't know exactly who made the (two) flags.” 

The Palmetto Guard flag was the first Confederate flag to fly over the fort after the departure of the US Army on April 14, 1861.

As victorious Confederates entered Fort Sumter, John Styles Bird Jr., a private in the South Carolina militia unit known as the Palmetto Guard, placed his unit's flag on the parapet facing Charleston. The fort remained in Confederate hands for the next four years until evacuation in February 1865.

Returned flag flies above the fort on April 14, 1865 (Library of Congress)

Interestingly, Bird received the flag from a Capt. Edward Mills, the spitfire captain of the ship Brig John H. Jones. The flag was flown in New York Harbor in late 1860 by the commercial vessel, which belonged to the Palmetto line of schooners traveling between New York and Charleston.

Tensions were high in the months before South Carolina and other Southern states seceded from the Union.

According to a December 1860 article in The New York Times, Mills “on being politely questioned on the subject of his flag, yesterday, told a gentleman, with more emphasis than civility, that if anybody dared to go on board of his vessel, and attempt to haul it down, "he was a dead man -- a corpse!"

You don't hurry this kind of work

All three of the flags have been kept in climatically controlled cases. They were protected by cellulostic materials to maintain preferred humidity. “You create the environment you want it to be in,” Ennes said. “They were dimly lit. The lighting wasn’t horrible at either place.”

Still, even small amounts of UV light fade and deteriorate textiles.

The NPS team decided to tackle the smaller Palmetto Guard first, before the U.S. storm flag. A large portion of the flag is missing and it was encapsulated years ago to mimic its original footprint. “It is very sheer,” said Ennes.

Some members of the team in front of the storm flag at Fort Sumter (NPS photo)

Experts removed the outer frame and the flag was unstitched from its mount. After a few other tasks, the Palmetto Guard and storm flags were carefully rolled and placed in archival tubes. The crews had to take extra care because there is no elevator at the fort and the crates had to be carried by hand down steps to a waiting boat.

The storm flag was stable but fragile, said Ennes, adding both flags were in fairly good shape but will need new mounts once they are back in public view. “Hopefully, they will go back on display after a long time in dark storage.”

Back on land, the garrison flag lies flat below a huge reproduction flag at the Fort Sumter Visitor Center at Liberty Square. Only a portion of the real flag is visible to visitors.

Conservators found it to be in a very delicate situation. “The threads and yarns are brittle and want to break when moved,” according to Ennes. “It was in worse shape than we imagined.”

“The garrison flag needs a little treatment before it goes on display. It would need some work at my lab,” she said, adding it can go back in the same case. For now, it is in a 26-foot storage tube.

A view of the mechanism that supports the rolled up garrison flag (NPS photo)

Complicating the picture at the visitor center was the failure of the HVAC system last year. Spaulding told the Picket a new system will go in place, but no firm timetable has been set, he said this week.

Even though no decision has been made on where the flags will be, “Wherever they go on display a working system is required," he said.

Ennes said the flags removal was a successful – the result of working slowly, patiently and carefully. The payoff comes with knowing artifacts will continue to tell a story.

“I am always amazed by the craftsmanship on all the things I work with.”