13th Alabama Infantry flag is back at Gettysburg for the first time since Pickett's Charge. Read all about its close call, intrepid color bearer, capture and conservation

13th Alabama flag (Alabama Archives); Pickett receiving orders from Longstreet at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, and Confederate veterans at the grand Gettysburg reunion in 1913 (Library of Congress)

A half mile away from where it was captured – but not before its color bearer inflicted an ugly wound on a Yankee – the battle flag of the 13^th Alabama Infantry is on display at Gettysburg for the first time since the July 1863 battle.

The regiment, part of Archer’s Brigade, suffered a staggering 62 percent casualty rate in the three days of fighting; many members were captured during Pickett’s Charge, where the flag was lost to the 1^st Delaware Infantry near the Angle.

Gettysburg National Military Park is showcasing the flag at the visitor center’s main museum gallery until February 2027.

“Cool to see this flag coming for a visit,” Civil War flag expert and researcher Greg Biggs told the Picket in an email.

The park reached out to the Alabama Department of Archives and History for the loan. The effort was assisted by the Gettysburg Foundation.

The flag has been at the Alabama Archives since 1905, when numerous Civil War flags were returned to states by order of President Theodore Roosevelt as a symbol of reconciliation. It was conserved in 1991 and, until this year, has only been on display at the Archives and Confederate Memorial Park, said Ryan M. Blocker, a curator at the archives.

Three veterans at Alabama soldiers' home in 1902 (Confederate Memorial Park)

Confederate Memorial Park in Chilton County, Ala., routinely displays Civil War flags, said site manager Calvin Chappelle. The park is on the site of a soldiers’ home that operated from 1902 to 1939. Several residents were veterans of the 13^th Alabama.

“Each flag has a story to tell. It obviously it was very important to the men who fought underneath them,” Chappelle said of the rotating displays.

A provenance report on the flag provides compelling details on its near capture on the first day at Gettysburg and how it apparently was attached to a lance for the Rebel attack at the Union center on July 3, 1863.

“I think its survival in itself is significant,” said Blocker. “The flag has not been back to Gettysburg since 1863, and we were honored to partner with the curators at Gettysburg to temporarily return the flag to the site where Alabamians carried it through one of the most significant battles of the Civil War.”

This flag was a replacement crafted in Richmond

The 13^th Alabama was formed in Montgomery in July 1861 and it joined the Army of Northern Virginia, where it took part in numerous campaigns in Maryland and Virginia, ending at Appomattox.

Made of wool bunting, this flag was issued to the regiment after it lost its flag at Antietam in September 1862. Biggs noted the flag was made by the Richmond Clothing Bureau, one of 14 Confederate quartermaster clothing bureaus.

The depot also manufactured shell jackets (right, Library of Congress)

The RCB contracted with a local painter, Lewis Montague, to stencil the regimental designations and battle honors onto flags.

Blocker said the 13^th Alabama flag – which was conserved by Textile Preservation Associates -- is in “good, exhibitable” condition. The artifact is mostly intact, with about 5 percent of its fabric missing.

There is some insect damage in the wool and accumulations of soil from exposure to a polluted environment, possibly a coal or oil-heated atmosphere,” she said in an email.

Before conservation, the flag exhibited sharp crease lines from being folded for many years. Crease lines can develop into weak points over time, Blocker said. If left unaddressed, the fibers would have broken, leading to additional damage.

Color bearer took a stab at bluecoat foe

13th Alabama is part of the Fry command at left center; click to enlarge (Hal Jespersen / Wikipedia)

The 13^th Alabama was at Gettysburg from the battle’s beginning. Its brigade tangled with the Federal Iron Brigade at Willoughby Run.

“As the fighting intensified, Federal troops appeared on the regiment’s right flank, resulting in the capture of approximately 100 of its soldiers and forcing the remainder back across the run,” says a National Park Service article about the exhibit at Gettysburg. “Before the withdrawal, however, Private William Castleberry tore the 13^th Alabama Infantry’s battle flag from its staff, saving it from capture.”

On July 3, regimental commander Col. Birkett Davenport Fry (right) noticed the flag bearer had attached a “formidable looking lance head to this staff,” according to the provenance report.

The condition of this flag indicates that at the time Castleberry tore it from the staff on July 1, the leading edge was ripped, tearing away the two top eyelets, leaving only one by which the flag could be attached to a staff. “So, what Colonel Fry apparently saw was the flag of the 13th Alabama Infantry attached to a lance which had been used to replace the missing staff,” the provenance report says.

The 13^th Alabama pushed to the front of the doomed Confederate assault and the flag was carried by multiple bearers. The 1^st Delaware captured it and two other flags. A total of 38 flags from 50 Rebel regiments were seized at Pickett’s Charge.

Pvt. Bernard McCarren of Company C, 1^st Delaware Infantry, was credited with the capture of the flag of the 13^th Alabama Infantry and he received the Medal of Honor the following year.

Fry, who lost a leg in the charge and was taken prisoner, later said he encountered a Federal soldier with a serious shoulder wound from the lance.

The flag was eventually forwarded to the U.S. War Department, where it was assigned Capture Number 60.

Handwritten words across the top of the artifact say, “Confederate Flag of the 13^th Alabama Reg. Captured by Company C. 1^St Del. Vols.” The center star bears the inked inscription: “captured by Co. C., 1^st Delaware Volunteers Regt., Gettysburg Pa., July 3d 1863.”

These graybeard Alabamians attended reunion

The 13^th Alabama flag was on display at the 102-acre Confederate Memorial Park from 2021-2022.

The park, which the state opened during the Civil War centennial in 1964, contains the site of the original veterans home and other historic structures, as well as a museum, research facility and two soldier cemeteries.

13th Alabama flag while on display in Chilton County, Alabama (Confederate Memorial Park)

Chappelle, the site manager, told the Picket the park typically displays a few flags from the Alabama Archives on a rotating basis. Currently on display are ones for the 18^th Alabama, Hilliard’s Legion and the Rifle Scouts.

Five soldiers from the soldiers’ home attended the famous Gettysburg 50^th reunion in 1913. Two served in the 13^th Alabama, notably Capt. James M. Simpson, head of the home. He was wounded during Pickett’s Charge.

Confederate Memorial Park, in a Facebook post last year, quoted a June 25, 1913, article in the Montgomery Advertiser, Simpson was "very much gratified over the prospects of such a happy reunion at Gettysburg. Monday morning before the reunion begins, Captain Simpson has an engagement to meet old comrades at Reynolds’ monument on the battlefield at Gettysburg, the spot where they entered the great fight."

There is no evidence the 13^th Alabama flag was brought to Gettysburg for the reunion, Blocker said.

“There may have been a sense of reunion, but not complete reconciliation or equality. Regardless, it was a start to the long process that we are perhaps still enduring today,” Confederate Memorial Park said on social media.

James M. Simpson was commandant of the home from 1906-1916 (Confederate Memorial Park)

Among the residents at the Alabama home was Pvt. Oscar Williams, who served with the 6^th Alabama, which suffered heavy casualties at Gettysburg.

A database about the soldiers, created by Chappelle and late park director Bill Rambo, says Williams was “the toast of veterans” at a reunion, according to a 1911 Montgomery Advertiser article. That’s because he was shot twice on July 2 at Gettysburg while carrying the colors of the regiment.

It was apparent then, as in any conflict, a unit’s flag elicited much pride and emotion.

Flags need time to rest for a few years

While the 13^th Alabama flag wasn’t back at Gettysburg until earlier this year, the 5^th Alabama’s did pay a visit in 2009 during a meeting of the Artist Preservation Group. The Montgomery, Ala., chapter of the organization helped fund that flag’s conservation.

“Our chief curator at the time drove the flag up to the conservator, passing through Gettysburg. The flag was displayed temporarily at the Gettysburg convention center during the convention,” said Blocker.

Photo of the 13th Alabama flag during conservation (Alabama Dept. of Archives and History)

I asked the curator about how often the 13^th Alabama flag has been displayed. She described how the archives came to protect them from light, heat and humidity.

When the Archives moved to its current location in 1940, these flags were exhibited in cases lining the hallways of the second floor. In the 1980s, the flags were removed from display and placed in storage to assess their condition, Blocker wrote.

A flag conservation program was established in the early 1990s, and the 13th was sent for conservation in 1991. After its conservation, it was featured in the “Tattered Banners” exhibit at the Archives, which was on display until the early 2010s. Flags in this exhibit were rotated in and then out as new flags underwent conservation.

“Our policy on displaying flags has evolved over time as our understanding of best practices for the storage and display of textiles has improved,” Blocker said. ”We aim to limit the duration that a flag is loaned or displayed to a maximum of two years. The conditions for display are very specific; for example, light levels must stay within certain foot-candle measurements, and temperature and humidity must remain within defined parameters.”

Union veterans (background) at Gettysburg face Confederate men in 1913 (Library of Congress)

After a flag is displayed, it rests for several years before being exhibited again.

After its time at Confederate Memorial Park, the 13^th Alabama flag rested until earlier this year, when it was shipped to Gettysburg. “While the timeframe was shorter than our regular practice would allow, we thought it was a good opportunity for the flag to make its return to Gettysburg,” said Blocker.

She and other curators and conservators stress the condition of a flag helps tell its story. So the focus is on conservation and preservation, rather than restoring them to their original state.

“The flags reveal the harsh realities of war; some have holes where shrapnel has torn through, and others have whole sections of the flag missing. These holes and marks are an integral part of the flag's history,” said Blocker.

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.”

'I am willing to die': Kepi worn by Georgia officer who fell near Kennesaw Mountain undergoes preservation work, to be displayed

Capt. George T. Burch's kepi after extensive treatment (NPS photo)

A kepi worn by a Civil War officer who was mortally wounded while leading a charge in northwest Georgia has undergone conservation and preservation treatment and is back in the collection of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, officials announced Friday.

The hat belonged to Capt. George Tilley Burch of Company I, 29^th Georgia Infantry. In the years following his death in July 1864, the cap's interior -- from its leather and lining to delicate silk -- had deteriorated to the point of being a pile of fabric. Small holes perforated the woolen exterior and the stitching connecting the brim to cap was loose, allowing a partial separation.

Now it has received some TLC.

The artifact was sent a couple years back to the National Park Service’s Harpers Ferry Center. Museum Conservation Services worked to stabilize the material and make some repairs and corrections. 

(NPS photo)

In a Facebook post Friday, the park described a partial list of the work:

“The sweatband and cardboard internal backing band were both humidified and reshaped, tears in the cardboard internal band were repaired, the sweatband was reattached using an edged lining of toned spun bond polyester, other sections were re-stitched and re-stabilized, and the visor was reattached and re-stabilized using the original stitching holes.”

The park near Atlanta received an $8,000 donation from the Artist Preservation Group to have the item – considered to be in poor condition -- sent off.

“Due to the generous support of the Artist Preservation Group, Inc., this artifact will be able to continue to tell the story of this individual soldier for current and future generations,” the park said in Friday’s post, adding it plans to put it on display at some point.

Wear, damage in kepi's interior before conservation (NPS photo)

The kepi and a sash worn by Burch were donated to the park in 1978 by George Burch Fisher, his daughter Jenny Cummins of Seattle told the Picket. The Confederate soldier is her great-great uncle, Cummins said, and her father, brother and nephew were named for him.

The sash (below) has been on display at the Kennesaw museum, while the kepi had long awaited conservation.

(NPS photo of George T. Burch sash)

Burch’s headgear had been stored in a humidity-controlled environment, away from UV light, before it was sent away for work. Park ranger and curator Amanda Corman believes most of the damage and wear occurred before the donation.

She told the Picket in 2020 she felt it was a suitable candidate for conservation.

Cummins’ late brother, George Fisher Jr., a few years ago donated a portrait of the soldier to the park, Corman told the Picket in an email this week. “Unfortunately, due to a backlog the portrait has not been completely processed into the collection.”

Corman said the park eventually would like to display the kepi at its visitors center buts plans have not been firmed up. It’s possible it could be paired with a Confederate butternut kepi.

Amanda Corman, members of Artist Preservation Group, before hat sent off (NPS photo)

This kepi has a compelling story. Burch, 23, likely wore it during the Atlanta Campaign, which for him, ended in a charge on Union entrenchments at Pine Mountain near Kennesaw Mountain. He got within 30 feet of enemy lines before he was shot through both knees on June 15, 1864. He was taken to City Hall Hospital in Atlanta.

"He lingered four weeks, during which time his sufferings were frequently excruciating, but the Christian grace which sustained him on that bed of languishing far outshone his heroism on the battlefield," said this obituary, which noted the officer’s last words were, “I am willing to die, I am willing to die.” He passed away on July 13.

According to documents kept by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Burch was a graduate of central Georgia’s Mercer College – the class of 1861 had lost eight members in battle by summer 1864 -- joined the Confederate army in Savannah in August or September 1861 and fought in Mississippi and Georgia. He was elected captain in May 1862.

Another view of the kepi before treatment (NPS photo)

While a junior officer, Burch was in command of the 29^th when it made its assault near Pine Mountain.

“In that fatal charge he was among the foremost and scorned to screen himself the hated foe, preferring rather to face them bravely in death, rather than cower and tremble before their approach,” the memoriam recounts. The 29th Infantry fought until war's end -- through the Atlanta Campaign, Hood's winter operations in Tennessee and at the Battle of Bentonville, N.C., in March 1865.

“In his disposition he was most affectionate, gentle in his manner, firm in action, incorrupt in principle, and pure in spirit," Burch's obituary reads. The officer is buried with family members in Newnan, about 40 miles southwest of Atlanta.

Like other family members, Cummins hails from Newnan, but she has lived in Seattle for decades. Her father told her the portrait of Burch at left may have been painted posthumously, perhaps from a photograph.

Cummins said she does not know what the star on the lapel represents. (Portrait courtesy of Jenny Cummins)

She was unaware of the work on the kepi until her daughter came across a February 2020 Civil War Picket article about it. Cummins said she in the past year has donated George T. Burch’s diary to a historical society in Newnan.

 “I am delighted they have done it and they are taking care of it,” she said of the kepi conservation and preservation effort.

29th Georgia marker at Chickamauga (Library of Congress)