A
recent discussion arose locally about whether A. P. Hill’s men, in particular,
Maxey Gregg’s South Carolina Brigade, flew a National Flag and wore blue
uniforms at Antietam during the final attack along the Harpers Ferry Road. I
had written this in my Antietam: The
Soldiers’ Battle in 1989 and at a Civil War Round Table in Harpers Ferry,
I was bluntly told that I was in error and that the Confederates were flying the First
National Banner, the Red White and Red. I strongly disagree. The Army of
Northern Virginia did not carry the first National in Battle after 1862 but
flew the square Southern Cross. No accounts of fighting in the East after 1861
mention seeing the First National in battle.
I
present the following for the readers to consider and draw
their own conclusions.
1.
On May 6, 1862 from the field near
Williamsburg, Virginia, Corporal John Foster, Company A, 49th New York penned
the following to his hometown paper, The
Fredonia Censor , “At our left the rebels appeared in quite strong force,
at their old trick , bearing the stars and stripes, and as our troops charged
they called out, “you are firing on your own men. Don’t fire on your own men,”
and some regiments did not execute it promptly, but were bewildered or
confused, and badly cut to pieces and forced to fall back.”
2. George
H. Gordon, History of the campaigns of
the Army of Virginia Under Pope, 1880, p. 150. In regard to the
Confederates looting the Federal trains at Manassas Junction, August 27, 1862
wrote, “Nor was the outer man neglected. From piles of new clothing, the
soldiers of Jackson’s corps arrayed themselves in the blue uniforms of the
Federals.”
3. Battles and Leaders of the Civil
War,
1887, Vol. 2, p. 533. Private Allen C. redwood, Company C, 55th Virginia, in
“Jackson’s ‘Foot Cavalry’ at the Second Bull Run,” wrote the following about
that same incident, “What a prize it was! Here were long warehouses full of
stores; cars loaded with boxes of new clothing en route to General Pope, but destined to adorn the “backs of his
enemies.”
4. Battles and Leaders of the Civil
War, 1887, Vol. 2, p. 655. Jacob D. Cox in “The Battle of
Antietam, “ noted the following in regard to the A. P. Hill’s counterattack in
the late afternoon: “This hostile force proved to be A. P. Hill’s division of
six brigades, the last of Jackson’s force to leave Harper’s Ferry, and which
had reached Sharpsburg since noon. Those first seen by Scammon’s men were
dressed in National Blue uniforms, which they had captured at Harper’s Ferry,
and it was assumed they were part of our own forces till they began to fire.”
5. Sixteenth Regiment Connecticut
Volunteers Excursion and Reunion at Antietam Battlefield, September 17, 1889,
p. 19 and 20. On p. 19 lines 8-12 plagiarized
Cox by repeating the statement issued above. However, on p. 19 -20 the writer
noted: “…a terrible volley from Hill’s men was fired into the Sixteenth from
behind a stonewall a few feet in front….Amidst the terrible uproar the rebels
raised the Federal colors and called out not to fire on friends.”
6. OR,
Vol. 19, pt. 1, Report 159, by Major J. M Comly, 23rd Ohio, p.159 noted the
following in regard to the same attack: “About the same time I discovered that
the Thirtieth Regiment was still in the corn-field, and that they had opened
fire upon what I supposed was our own troops, advancing from the left. It seems
proper to state that this supposition did not rest entirely upon the fact that
the enemy had uniforms similar to ours and which (I have since been informed by
a prisoner) were taken at Harper’s Ferry, but upon the fact that they used the
national colors on the occasion.”
7. Thomas
G. Day, Private, Company E, 3rd Indiana Cavalry, “Opening the Battle: A
Cavalryman’s recollection of the First day’s Fight at Gettysburg,” National Tribune, July 30, 1903, p. 3.
In describing the final Confederate attack against the dismounted cavalrymen
near the Seminary, south of the Fairfield Road, he observed the following: The
rebs marched by platoons at the double-quick down the other side. Most had blue
clothes and were flying our flag….Major Lemon yelled, “Don’t shoot; they’re our
own men.” ….The rebs threw down our flag and unfurled theirs.”
8. Charles
E. Chapin, Private, Company L, 1st Vermont Cavalry, Diary May 5, 1864, Civil
War Miscellaneous Collection, C – E, Manuscripts Department, USAHEC, during the
battle of the Wilderness was captured by a Virginia cavalryman in a blue
uniform.
9.
Arthur A. Kent, (ed.), Three Years With Company K, 1976, p. 263.(The
Recollections of Sergeant Austin C. Stearns, Company K, 13th Massachusetts). On
May 8, 1864 at Laurel Hill, as the regiment charged James Breathed’s battery,
Stearns saw a squad of cavalry dressed in blue swinging their swords to get the
13th to stop firing. The Massachusetts men complied and the cavalry, being
Confederate, covered Breathed’s retreat.
