Alan J. Pitts
Re: Flags at the fall in Ala.
Thu Apr 12 15:25:58 2001


As I mentioned earlier, all the old brigade organizations were broken up in the winter of 1865 and troops assigned to brigades based on state identification. Col. E. W. Rucker was wounded in the fighting on Granny White Pike on the left flank of Hood's army after the sun set on Dec. 16, 1864. Rucker lost an arm in a hand-to-hand struggle and was captured. His brigade, which included units from Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, was broken up.

As for the flag, if the Hayneville Guards banner isn't the flag of Clanton's Brigade (6th and Livingston 8th Cavalry), where is it? Better, what happened to it? How did this flag come to be identified as the flag of Clanton's Brigade?

We know the Hayneville Guards banner was displayed as a captured flag April 12, 1865, on the streets of Montgomery (along with many others). It was later catalogued as that of Clanton's Brigade. Any other theory must suppose that the people responsible for identification of the flag made a mistake, in which case the real flag is identified as something else. Or we may conjecture that someone substituted this flag for the real flag somewhere, somehow. I'm unable to find a good reason to support either one of those theories.