glenn
prior to the ensign act.
Fri Jun 8 07:47:46 2001


Prior to the establishment of the rank of Ensign, the head of the Color Guard would be a Sergeant. According to Hardee's Manual, the color guard will be composed of eight corporals. "The front rank will be composed of a sergeant, to be selected by the colonel, who will be called, for the time, color-bearer, with the two ranking corporals, respectively, on his right and left." This was by the book. The color-bearer in battle often wound up being the man who carried the colors, from Private to Lt. Colonel. Here are a few excerpts from my book, "The Flags of Civil War Alabama."
1st Alabama Inf.: Pvt. E.F. Ingram (temporary); Ft. Gaines.
4th Alabama Inf., Co. H: "Ensign" C. Daniel Stewart (killed carrying the colors at Manassas).
5th Alabama Inf. Battalion: Pvt. M.T. Ledbetter (volunteered to carry the flag); Seven Days, wounded at Gaines Mill.
11th Alabama Inf.: at Frazier's Farm, "after the killing of two or three bearers," Charlie McNeil took the flag toward the enemy. When he too was killed, his nephew, Billy McNeil took the flag to the heart of an enemy artillery battery where he too was killed.
13th Alabama Inf.: Pvt. W.A. Castleberry; carried the flag on the 1st day at Gettysburg.
20th Alabama Inf.: color bearer, J.H. Redding, hid the flag under his clothes at Salisbury, N.C., to prevent its surrender.
22nd Alabama Inf., Co. I: at Shiloh, color bearer killed and flag taken up by Pvt. Willie Baldwin. Baldwin evidently remained color bearer for some time. After the war, a friend of his, M.C. Carter, placed the flag on Baldwin's grave, "each Memorial Day."
23rd Alabama Inf.: Robert H.G. Gaines, "last color bearer."
36th Alabama Inf.: Ensign Joe Tillinghast carried the flag during the battle for Atlanta and led a charge on an enemy gun emplacement.
37th Alabama Inf.: Pvt. Jack Summers, color-bearer, was captured at Missionary Ridge, although the flag was saved. Walt Harmon was possibly the next color-bearer.
39th Alabama Inf.: color sergeant Ebenezer Priest lost a leg carrying the flag on July 22, 1864 at the battle of Atlanta.
40th Alabama Inf.: at Bentonville, three color bearers were shot down carrying the flag. The next, Hilliard O'Neal, eventually saved the flag from capture by secreting it beneath his clothing.
45th Alabama Inf.: at the battle for Atlanta, color bearer, J.H. Buckner, heard his Colonel say, "Hold to your colors, Buckner!", but the bearer remebered after the war that "I could not hold to them they were too many for me." Buckner spent the rest of the war at Camp Douglas.
58th Alabama (32nd & 58th combined): when the regiment surrendered at Meridian, color bearer James Freeman saved the flag in the leg of his boot.
59th Alabama Inf.: at the battle of Hatcher's Run, Lt. Col. Daniel S. Troy (60th Ala.), with this flag in his hands, was shot down trying to urge his men forward.
2nd Battalion, Hilliard's Legion: this surely must be the most struck flag during the war. At Chickamauga, Robert Y. Hiett carried this flag throughout the fight. Afterward, eighty-three holes were counted in the colors. Hiett was himself wounded three times during the fight.