This weekend's Civil War show in Dalton, Ga., features tons of relics and four lectures, including one on Confederate flags at Fort Donelson and Fort Henry

Guns and other collectibles at the 2018 show in Dalton (Civil War Picket photo)

Civil War historian and author Gregg Biggs will speak Saturday at the annual Chickamauga Civil War Show in Dalton, Ga., about Confederate flags flown during the Henry-Donelson Campaign in Tennessee.

The 31^st edition of the annual firearms, artifacts and relics show at the Dalton Convention Center, 2211 Tony Ingle Parkway, takes place Saturday and Sunday. Mike Kent, who has been producing Civil War shows for 35 years, said vendors will set up items on about 450 tables.

Biggs is one of four speakers scheduled Saturday

Many Confederate flags were captured as Union forces under Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant took Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in February 1862 and gained vital land and river areas in the Western Theater. About 13,000 Confederates were taken prisoner.

Biggs, a noted flag expert, told the Picket his afternoon program will cover three major flag patterns in use: The first national flag of the Confederacy, Virginia state flags used by Brig. Gen. John Floyd’s brigade, and the first use of the Hardee pattern flag by Brig. Gen. Simon Bucker’s division. (Hardee example at left is 3rd Tennessee in a private collection. It was captured by the 14th Missouri.)

Buckner designed the flag while in Bowling Green, Ky., in January 1862. Hardee pattern flags had a blue field and a circular or rectangular white center. They are most identified with units in the Army of Tennessee.

The units holding the forts were from Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia. Biggs’ talk will cover existing flags and captured flags that cannot be located today.

"None of the captured CS flags from Henry or Donelson were ever sent to the War Department, which makes tracking them difficult," Biggs told the Picket. "Some were sent home by Union officers and most of those remain missing today."

A few days after Fort Donelson fell, Clarksville and Nashville were captured; the latter the first capital of a Confederate state to go into Union hands.

The lectures Saturday are in Room 1-A on the lower level of the trade center. Seminars are for paying attendees only, said Kent.

Other speakers on the schedule

11 a.m.: Michael J. Manning, author of “They Fought Like Veterans:The Military History of the Civil War in the Indian Territory.” A summary of the book says the strife of the Civil War severely fractured the Five Civilized Tribes, splitting allegiances between the Union and the Confederacy. 

Noon: Historian and author Scott Sallee on the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. He will present the theory that the killing had nothing to do with the Confederacy but, instead, the radical faction of the Republican Party and the highest levels of the U.S. government.

1 p.m.: Greg Biggs (see above)

2 p.m.: Fort Donelson expert and battlefield tour guide John Walsh will discuss photography during the Civil War. Walsh operates Fort Donelson Relics.

Relic shows are a major place for sellers, museum curators, authors, collectors and others to network.

Show hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on Sunday.  Admission is $12 for adults; children 12 and under are free.