Rare Civil War Relic Rediscovered: Lincoln Assassination Flag Is In Connecticut

HARTFORD — As our nation celebrates its 225th anniversary, a silent witness to a harrowing moment in America’s history has been rediscovered. Long believed to have been lost, Civil War historians and Lincoln assassination experts have verified that The Connecticut Historical Society holds in its collection one of the five flags that decorated the Presidential box at Ford’s Theatre the night of Lincoln’s Assassination. According to published period reports, this flag was in fact in the hands of Lincoln the moment he was shot by assassin John Wilkes Booth.

The historical society announced the findings during a press conference at its headquarters on July 5, the same day its current major exhibition, “Civil War Treasures,” on view until January 2002, officially opened.

The rediscovered flag is the companion piece to the Treasury Guard’s regimental flag — the flag which tripped Booth — now at Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site.

“The Treasury Guard national flag is a spectacular discovery of a missing link in a chain of artifacts associated with the assassination of President Lincoln,” said Howard Michael Madaus, the chief curator at The National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Penn., and a flag authority. “The Connecticut Historical Society has turned up quite a relic.”

“This is an extraordinary survival” said Dr Susan P. Schoelwer, the director of museum collections at The Connecticut Historical Society

 “This flag was present at one of the great turning points in history — possibly even one of the last objects President Lincoln consciously touched,” Dr Schoelwer continued. “It is one of those rare objects that transports us across time — in its presence we, too, stand at Lincoln’s side.”

In 1998, as part of its long-term collections development process, The Connecticut Historical Society (CHS) embarked on a systematic reassessment of its Civil War collections. The story of the assassination flags had caught the attention of the Civil War community in 1996 with the discovery of one of the other four assassination flags in the collections of Pike County Historical Society. As a result, when former CHS Acting Head Librarian Kelly Nolin, a Civil War historian, saw the documents accompanying the flag, she immediately recognized its significance.

Preserved in the box with the flag was a separate, small strip of blue silk with gold fringe, identified as part of the flag that caught the spur of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, causing him to fall and break his leg. The strip matches the Treasury Guard regimental flag, which is displayed at Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site in Washington, D.C.

“The flag was donated to the CHS in 1922, and proudly announced in the annual report for that year,” observed Dr Schoelwer. “In general, however, the institution’s Civil War collections were not until recently a major focus of attention.

“Unlike many Civil War era flags, this one was not placed on permanent display, but was left undisturbed, in a locked box, in dark storage,” continued Dr Schoelwer. “As a result, it escaped the overexposure to light that has caused many period flags to disintegrate to virtually nothing.”

The CHS Treasury Guard national flag had become very dry and brittle, causing the silk to split and shred into fragments. The flag, still in its box, was taken to Textile Conservation Workshop in South Salem, N.Y., for evaluation and treatment.

There, conservators spent weeks humidifying the silk, then painstakingly arranged the tiny fragments in their proper positions on a supporting fabric, which was in turn mounted on a frame inside a protective Plexiglas case.

“This remarkable find is significant not only for adding to our knowledge about Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, but also for demonstrating the role that historical societies can play in preserving and exhibiting significant treasures of our national heritage,” said Dr Thomas Turner, a Lincoln assassination scholar and editor of The Lincoln Herald.

The flag is an American flag, made of silk in 1864 by the Philadelphia firm of Horstmann Bros. Civil War-era flags were commonly customized with inscriptions identifying the military units that carried them. The flag appears “backwards” because it was deliberately mounted to display its reverse, which carries on its canton the distinctive inscription identifying the flag as having been “Presented to Treasury Guard Regt. by the Ladies of the Treasury Dept. 1864.”

Thanks to a custom-designed mount, the front of the canton is also visible, although the front side of the flag’s stripes is obscured by the supporting fabric. The poor condition of the fabric makes it impossible to display both sides of the entire flag.

“This flag represents a virtuoso work of patriotic art of the era,” added Don Troiani, a renowned Civil War collectibles expert, artist and historian. “Artists employed in painting these magnificent banners were often the very same who painted firemen’s hats and buckets, trade signs and other similar icons now highly esteemed as folk art.

“Because their ground was fragile silk not canvas, and of a military nature, their impelling and symbolic imagery is often overlooked today,” Mr Troiani continued. “Such artwork was intended to inspire men to proudly fight and die for their country as it led them onto the field of battle.”

Preserved and proudly displayed at The Connecticut Historical, the Treasury Guard national flag is certainly a national treasure — a silent witness to one of the pivotal events in American history, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

The Connecticut Historical Society is at One Elizabeth Street in Hartford. Museum exhibition hours are Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 5 pm.