The Arkansas in the Civil War Message Board

Misidentified flags

Here's an interesting bit of trivia that I don't believe we've discussed on the board before.

Last night I was doing a little light reading, perusing some Union after-action reports, and ran across a reference to the capture of the colors of the 8th & 19th Arkansas Artillery Regiment. There was no such unit, of course, and the remark is obviously in reference to the 8th & 19th Arkansas Infantry Regiment.

But folks who are somewhat new to the study of the Civil War might be interested to know that the misidentification of this flag (and other similar flags) was due to the fact that the Union soldiers who captured such flags did not know that the inverted (barrels down) crossed cannons on Confederate battle flags was a battle honor, authorized to be displayed on the colors of a regiment which had captured an enemy battery. The Yankees erroneously assumed that the crossed cannons signified an artillery regiment.

There were no Arkansas artillery regiments in the Civil War, so if you run across such a reference, it is actually an infantry regiment whose colors displayed the inverted crossed cannons battle honor for capturing an enemy battery.

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Misidentified flags
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