RICHMOND HILL, Ga. — As Fort McAllister fell to the Union Army of Gen. William T. Sherman days before Christmas in 1864, one of his artillery officers seized the Confederate flag of a vanquished company of Georgia riflemen. The officer carried the silk banner home to Maine as a souvenir, and it stayed in his family for three generations in a box along with a handwritten note: “To be return to Savannah or Atlanta sometime.”
Nobody knows for sure why the late Maj. William Zoron Clayton wanted his Civil War trophy flag returned to the South. But after 148 years, his wish has been honored.
The Union officer’s great-grandson, Robert Clayton, donated the flag to be displayed at Fort McAllister State Historic Park in coastal Georgia, where a dedication is planned next month just before Confederate Memorial Day. Clayton suspects his ancestor wanted to pay back his former enemies after a Bible taken from him by Confederate troops during the war was returned to him by mail 63 years later.
“I think he had a little sympathy for the plight of the Confederates,” said Clayton, a homebuilder who lives in Islesboro, Maine. “They returned his Bible, so he wanted to return their flag. One good turn deserves another.”
With its cannons pointed out over the Ogeechee River a few miles south of Savannah, Fort McAllister was where Sherman won the final battle of his devastating march to the sea that followed the burning of Atlanta. The Union general knew that taking the fort would clear the way for him to capture Savannah. On Dec. 13, 1864, he sent about 4,000 troops to overwhelm Fort McAllister’s small contingent of 230 Confederate defenders.
Among the Confederate units defeated at the fort was 2nd Company B of the 1st Georgia Regulars, a Savannah-based outfit otherwise known as the Emmett Rifles. The company’s commander, Maj. George Anderson, surrendered his unit’s ceremonial flag after Fort McAllister fell.
Decades later, the flag’s capture was no secret to Daniel Brown, the park manager at Fort McAllister, who kept research files on the Emmett Rifles banner and four others known to have been taken by Union troops under Sherman. He called the flag a “once in a lifetime” find, especially considering that Civil War sites nationwide are still marking the 150th anniversaries of the war’s battles and events.
“You can’t put a price on it,” said Brown, who put the flag on display last month. “Everybody has drooled over the thing.”
Brown was well-versed in the flag’s history during the war, but clueless as to what had become of it since.
That changed when Robert Clayton paid a visit to the Georgia state park during a vacation in October 2010. He struck up a casual conversation with Brown about the Emmett Rifles.
“I said, ‘What would you say if I told you I had the Emmett Rifles flag hanging on my living room wall?’” Clayton recalled.
Clayton had found the flag, and its note with his great-grandfather’s wish, about 20 years earlier stashed in a closet. He said he didn’t know why older family members had never returned it, but also admits he wasn’t at first eager to part with the flag himself. Instead he framed the banner and displayed it in his home.
Clayton said his visit to Fort McAllister made him change his mind. Before he left Georgia, he had agreed to donate the flag and follow through on his great-grandfather’s written request. But it took months to make the final exchange — mostly, Clayton says, because he couldn’t work up the nerve to mail the flag 1,230 miles from Maine to Georgia. When he finally shipped it for overnight delivery last summer, he stayed up tracking the package online until it arrived.
Once the flag arrived in Georgia, park rangers turned it over to conservation experts who mounted and sealed it in a protective frame. Park staffers finally hung it above a display at Fort McAllister’s museum last month.
Brown said he had some doubts when he first heard Clayton’s story, but once he saw the flag he could quickly tell it was authentic. The dates of two prior battles in which the Emmett Rifles fought at Fort McAllister — Feb. 1 and March 3, 1863 — were also painted on the silk. Brown had records of the military orders authorizing the unit to add those specific dates as honors to its flag.
His files also confirmed that historians had identified the Union officer who captured the flag in 1864 as Maj. Clayton, the donor’s great-grandfather.
Civil War flag experts say the Confederate banner is a remarkable specimen that was hand-sewn from pieces of silk with a fancy golden fringe.
There’s one small tear and the red field has faded almost to pink, but its blue “X” and white stars remain crisp. So do the hand-painted words — “Emmett Rifles” and “Fort McAllister” — and battle honors.
“It’s a terrific find,” said Cathy Wright, a curator and flag expert at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va., which has a collection of about 550 Civil War flags. “It’s not one-of-a-kind, but it’s a relatively rare example of this kind of flag.”
Despite orders after the Civil War to turn all captured flags over to the federal War Department, many Union troops kept them as souvenirs.
Many other unit flags were destroyed during the war, either by capturing units cutting them into pieces to divide the spoils or by units burning their own flags to stop them from falling into enemy hands, said Bryan Guerrisi, education coordinator at the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Penn.
“A lot of them get lost or are in somebody’s attic and they think it’s a blanket or something,” Guerrisi said.
In 1905, under orders from Congress, the federal government began returning its stash of captured Confederate flags to the Southern states — a move aimed at reconciliation that provided museums with many of the flags in their collections.
Clayton is planning to travel back to Fort McAllister to see his great-grandfather’s flag officially unveiled to the public April 21, two days before Georgia celebrates Confederate Memorial Day.
“It was my great-grandfather’s wish,” Clayton said. “I looked at it for 20 years, but it needed to go back where it belongs.”
Online: Fort McAllister State Historic Park: http://www.gastateparks.org/FortMcAllister
I’m not sure who would want to own a confederate flag. Its stands for some very bad ideas. Ideas that good American’s died to stop.
Called reconciliation, it is also an important part of history. How does the saying go, “Lest we forget?” Bad ideas or not a lot of people died on both sides.
Well said. All this talk of reconciliation only goes so far. Best people consider the fact that Adolph Hitler was a fervid admirer of the Confederate States of American and all it stood for. The right people won the Civil War and at unimaginable cost. Nobody should ever loose sight of that fact.
The Civil war wasn’t all about slavery, it had to do with state rights versus Federal Government oppression, also there were vast differences in the socio-economic make up of the Southern and Northern states. The South’s economy was dependent on agriculture versus the Norths industry base one.
the south was dependent on agriculture is true… but the souths agriculture was dependent on slaves…. hence the war between the states.
It doesn’t need to be ‘all about slavery’. In fact, if it was even 1% about slavery, that’s too much.
Actually, when Kentucky and Maryland and Missouri were on the fence about whether to secede or not, a delegation from Louisiana, MS and AL were sent north to talk to them. They left records about their conversations, and they clearly show that what the South was talking about was the fact that if Lincoln was allowed to preside over the South, that blacks would be free and equal to whites. They even asked rhetorically if the governments of those states (MD, KY and MO) were ready to accept black people marrying their descendants. This shows that at an official level, it was all about slavery and equal rights.
99.9% slavery & .01% extraneous racism. You sound like a latter day apologist for the boundless evil that was antebellum America.
Here’s what Haley Barbour had to say about it. He is past head of the national Republican Party and the former governor of Mississippi.
“Slavery was the primary, central, cause of secession. The Civil War was necessary to bring about the abolition of
slavery,” he continued. “Abolishing slavery was morally imperative and
necessary, and it’s regrettable that it took the Civil War to do it. But
it did.”
Wasn’t it Barbour who pardoned all those convicted murderers just before he left office?
Actually, yes. Not sure why that is germane to this question. If you see who he released, you will also note that about 2/3 of the people he pardoned were white, while the population of the state jails in MS is 2/3 non-white. Nobody is saying he is racist, but people have noted the math.
Why doesn’t anyone talk about the Baron robbers who were exploiting women, children and Immigrant s in the North? They would exploit these groups so they could pay them low wages.
There are accounts of Slave masters who treated their slaves better than the northern paid workers were treated. Before I get attacked, my point is the Civil War wasn’t only about slavery
The latest scholarship may change a few opinions. Grab a gander at “What This Cruel War Was Over” by Chandra Manning. She makes the point the only thing that triggered secession was utter absolute refusal to accept the possibility of any abridgement in the supremacy of the white race and slavery and the only thing that kept the rebel armies in the fields long after any reasonable expectation of victory had vanished was the absolute refusal to contemplate any change in the relations between the races and chattel slavery forever as essential to the manhood of the southern white male. Negroes were regarded and treated as beasts of the fields. Slavery as a more human alternative to wage labor was discredited bs from the outset such moonshine was promulgated. Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, Abby Kelly, the Grimke sisters, et al had the absolute right of it, right from the very beginning; and from the very start were regarded as dangerous fanatics to the end of the war in both north and south.. All through the south the Declaration of Independence was regarded as moronic posturing and voided by the reality of white supremacy over the black race. As a country we were not nice people in spite of our professed ideals..
It was about slavery – not “state’s rights”
Only sore loser rebs believe that hoo hah
yessah
It was actually about money and slavery played into it really only for that reason. For the north it was about ending slavery, but to the south it was more about economic survival. The main income source in the south was from plantations and the south felt that they would not be able to survive financially without slavery. It was also about state’s rights because the south felt that the north didn’t understand the position they were in. It was less about racism and more about economical factors. The war would have occurred even if the slaves were white or women or children. The south relied heavily on slave labor and were afraid of being able to survive without it. I think everyone agrees that slavery is bad and never should have occurred. That being said…the confederate flag is a representation of rebellion towards the dictates of the north and not slavery. A few hate groups hijacked the flag, though, so now most will associate it with slavery.
The South Will Rise Again !
Yee-Haw!
Agreed, but perhaps it’s been on the rise ever since Nixon’s successful race-based “southern strategy.” In many ways it has, and that might be one of this country’s biggest blocks to human progress. Could it be that Ronald Reagan’s comment that the states are laboratories of democracy ignored the realities of Cracker America? Laboratories they might be; beacons (or even glowing candles) of democratic enlightenment they are not. The trouble is, other crackers in places where they ought know better sort of like it and seek to emulate the culture.
William Lloyd Garrison would get a boot out of your arguments on economic victimization vs racism as the engine for secession. He would respond that it is impossible to differentiate between the sinner and the sin. The south ran the federal government until the election of Lincoln, at which point they went to plan b. States rights justified secession. Charles Pettigrue of Charleston, S. C. said his state was “To small to be a republic and to large to be an asylum.” There are loads of people on this string who will gladly swallow slavery and say it wasn’t so bad, just to take a shot at the federal government and proclaim their solidarity with the antebellum states rights movement. And the funny part is they expect to pass for normal.
The southern agriculture that mattered to the socio-economic hierarchy was dependent upon a system of chattel slavery, and had it not been for the insistence of that hierarchy to expand that system into the territories, there might not have been a war. True, besides the bloody civil war in Kansas, the “official” fighting started over Lincoln’s refusal to let the rebels go their separate ways, using retention of federal property (forts) as rationale. Whether a wise course or not, preserving the disunited union was his first principle in the struggle. He was not an abolitionist favoring an immediate end to slavery, but neither was he at peace with it. It is also true that the war pitted a rising industrial capitalist economy against a hybrid medieval system of landholding and labor. As the president said, the country could not continue half slave and half free. As for states rights, one can only wonder what the reaction from its neighbors would have been if one of those cracker states had passed a manumission law. We know their respect for the rights of northern states to ban slavery was non-existent as was evident in the fugitive slave act. Citing states-rights as a rationale for sustaining an endless denial of human rights was a fig leaf pure and simple, and still is.
Actually, the whole state rights thing only came up after the civil war as a reason for Jim Crowe Laws. The Southern Constitution gave the congress in Richmond “supreme Power” over the land. So if they really wanted state rights then they would have made sure the states had more power. But there own constitution did not give that to them. Also, all confederate states were REQUIRED to be slave states. Mean that if you were in the confederate and then later wanted to exercise your state right getting rid slavery you would be forced by the Supreme Power to keep it. It wasn’t about State rights, states rights became a shield against the government AFTER the Civil war so they could maintain segregation and the Jim Crow laws.
It is an amazing, and tangible piece of history. History should be protected, regardless of (opinions on) the history.
No historian would favor that, not if it means closing the past to continuous scholarship. Historical inquiry is what should be protected.
Like the 70s ?
It stands for defiance of an overreaching federal government. What could possibly be more fundamentally American than that?
It stands for supporting slavery – and the modern versions deserved to be burned.
yessah
The South Will Rise Again !
Yee-Haw!
It no more stands for slavery than the papal flag stands for pedophilia. Such proclamations are the crutch of the simple minded and the tool of those who know they would lose the debate and wish to preemptively shut down the discussion.
By your mendacious definition of patriotism I would nominate the KKK as being right up your ally. You’d probably look good in a sheet and you’d have lots of company.
There’s a little more to it than that, but history tends to glaze over some things while talking up other points. History is written by the winners.
You know that it was the Democratic Party back then that fought FOR slavery and the Republican Party who fought against it, right? My how things change…
It has changed so much that the parties back then can’t not be compared to the parties of today, and please if you think there is a link, stop
What a rich piece of history to have at Fort McAllister! This flag symbolizes one of the great struggles that have shaped American history.
Civil War buffs thank you, Mr. Clayton.
I may be mistaken but I believe the State of Maine is in possession of Confederate Battle Flags captured by Maine Regiments. I believe one of them is from Virginia and that there was some discussion between then Governor King and the other states Governor over the return of said flag or flags.
as Chris Mathews said about what mr obama did for him, I also got a chill running down me from reading the story
It takes an honorable man to do what Mr Clayton did in returning the flag, his great grandfather can rest in peace knowing his wishes were kept. Stand proud Mr Clayton and god bless you.
hahahah good one Dlbert
Would not be suprised.
It’s sometimes funny to watch how these threds go, what started out as kudos for returning a battle flag, tries to turn into a one upmenship lesson on the civil war.
probably…
John Baldacci had it commisioned for 60+K, it was painted by a non union painter, because John didn’t want to spend 1.8 millon on it, if it were to be done by a unionized painter. There are many saftey issues to concider when painting propoganda.. What if you get paint on yourself, hazmat will need to be called in.. To many issues… it’s a C grade painting anyway and should be displayed is a unionized sewer treatment plant.
If it was so important why is just union people wanting it? because it bias perhaps///
Wow… I just finished reading this same article in today’s Bryan County News (Richmond Hill, GA) and go online to read it again.
In fact, I saw the flag hung at the Fort just last week when attending a Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours event, about a 15 minute drive from where we Snowbird winters.
Kudo’s to Mr. Clayton for “doing the right thing”. While all civil wars have been most sad and violent, similar acts of kindness, by both sides, abound during this trying time in our history.
Lest too many on these pages wet their ethnocentric juices too far, I’ve found Savannah to feel a great deal like Portland, at least the finer aspects of Portland, nothing about Bath Salts down here this winter.
Residents of the Low Country are clearly pro-God, pro-military and pro-business… much like Maine was so many years ago.
Savannah’s always been interestingly open and diverse: One of America’s first synagogue’s was built in Savannah; the founder of the Girl Scout movement, Juliet Gordon Lowe’s home is in downtown Savannah; and John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church… all have Savannah roots.
My favorite bumper sticker reads: “Yankees One… Rebels Zero… Half Time Score”.
When one takes into account business investment in and relocation to the South (Roxanne Quimby and Burt’s Bees comes to mind), I believe the South fully intends to win the “second half”. Within a very short drive, are very successful and high-paying jobs building Gulfstream jets, JVC equipment, and even Mitsubishi auto parts; while back in Maine, Baldacci drove up taxes on EXXON such that they moved out of Maine, taking BIA’s lucrative jet fuel sales operations with them.
Electric rates are half of Bangor Hydro’s, and BC&BS of Maine’s rates appear to also be about twice BC&BS of GA’s.
Equally pleasing is the local’s admiration for the one, “good”, Yankee general… Joshua Chamberlain! He was a bonafide war hero who “whooped them fair and square” and a true Renaissance Man both pre, and post, war!
Too bad Georgia Southern beat the Maine Black Bears in last year’s football playoffs, but it was an enjoyable game to attend and the locals treated all us Maine supporters with dignity and respect… arguably with more class than some posters on these pages.
They’re a little less genteel in Virginia. When I lived there I saw several vehicles with the bumper sticker, “Have a nice day – Shoot a damned Yankee.”
Most of that is in satire I’m sure
I don’t know. When we got orders back North, I was chatting with a neighbor saying we’d enjoyed our tour in Virginia but were looking forward to moving closer to home because we were Yankees, he said, “Oh we never thought of you as Yankees. We like you.”
similar to the ones I see around here that say “if they call it tourist season, why can’t we shoot them?” Or the nickname many Mainers have for Massachusetts tourists “massholes”..
I don’t think mainer’s are the only ones who call them that though lol.
I lived in Virginia for quite awhile and never saw anything like that. The people accepted me, even with my “funny speech. “
My wife is from Virginia and my first two children were born there. Your anecdote is a fraud.
Let’s face it the south has never gotten over getting their butts kicked and handed to them by us Damn Yankees. And for many of them the war still continues, but no the south will not rise again, thankfully.
The South WILL Rise Again !
Yee-Haw!
The South has already risen. Where is the economic growth in the country occurring now?
Yes. The concept is great to return the “Rebel” flag to its home. However, the only thought I have here is that for a 150 year-old flag set into a non-protected (unsealed) frame, certainly is in pristine condition for being caught up in the US Civil War and changing hands as it did, except for the apparent “holes” in the flag just above the “7” in the date on the flags center lower side, and another one just to the right of the star on the lower right side. But the article explains away the fading and the wear and tear on the flag. So much American History here in the USA yet to be seen and discovered.
Slavery existed under the current American flag for 90 years and only existed under the Confederate flag for 3 years. I’m not convinced that a Confederate flag is all about hate, but more about freedom.
How can that be? The current American flag is a half-century old!
What?
I’m curious Dlbrt. Did you see it the first time?
I would have sold it to the highest bidder. Just saying
i hope so- we want the mural back, we want the mural back, we want the mural back….that sounds foolish
No sympathy for Confederates here….Not then and not now.
Too bad we can’t return common sense to some of our southern states.
As a ‘Yankee’ living in the deep south, It’s embarassing to see how misinformed the ‘Yankees’ posting here are on the War of Northern Aggression. Sherman was a war crimminal and should have been tried as such.
This honorable gesture reminds me of Maine’ s great Joshua Chamberlain:
Chamberlain was summoned to Union headquarters where Maj. Gen. Charles Griffin
informed him that he had been selected to preside over the parade of
the Confederate infantry as part of their formal surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 12.
Thus Chamberlain was responsible for one of the most poignant scenes
of the Civil War. As the Confederate soldiers marched down the road to
surrender their arms and colors, Chamberlain, on his own initiative,
ordered his men to come to attention and “carry arms” as a show of
respect. Chamberlain described what happened next:
Gordon, at the head of the marching column, outdoes
us in courtesy. He was riding with downcast eyes and more than pensive
look; but at this clatter of arms he raises his eyes and instantly
catching the significance, wheels his horse with that superb grace of
which he is master, drops the point of his sword to his stirrup, gives a
command, at which the great Confederate ensign following him is dipped
and his decimated brigades, as they reach our right, respond to the
‘carry.’ All the while on our part not a sound of trumpet or drum, not a
cheer, nor a word nor motion of man, but awful stillness as if it were
the passing of the dead.
Good story. Very sad that the Yankee War of agression won. Sherman was a War Criminal. Slavery exists right here in Maine today just ask the Decoster Egg workers. Guess Sherman should have destroyed Turner Maine and the Republican Legislature in Augusta.
i moved from maine to georgia & alabama alot of the southerners are still fighting the civil war down south i have been in a few fist fights over being a yankee( im undeafeted) this is one yankee that stands his ground!!!!!
Well, I just moved from Virginia to Maine and I find that the people talk funny and don’t seem to find the time to chat with their neighbors. There really isn’t that much difference between good ‘ol boys in the South and rural residents of Maine, they both drive pickups and drag race on straight sections of back roads. Perhaps you could get a gun rack for your truck so you blend in more…
These rednecks are everyplace, but are the backbone of society in every state. They keep things moving in every industry available and then some more unmentioned. Whatever they drive is a matter of choice, or need. If we take a close look at the current situation of slavery, the entire USA still has slaves working. The report was on CNN recently about “Slavery In America”. So, the mindset still has not changed much. The historics of the north being against slavery in the south was a falacy and the northern states (as most states in the USA do) populations have slavery in several forms and degrees today. What the southerner’s are mad about is the fact they are embarrassed about losing the war (Civil) to the industrial north. By the way, where I live, we use our rear license plate and many of us still use some form of the “Rebel Flag” to attach to our front plate device. The fact that Mainers “talk funny” is because of the Revolutionary War emphasis and many English, Irish, Poles, and other immigrants decided to settle in the northeastern states when they arrived and the location of the state near Nova Scotia and Canada. If you begin to appreciate Mainers and the northeastern states known as “New England”, you will find this area of the USA a very nice place to be considering the rest of the problems other places have in this world.