I did the research indeed on that Morgan flag and even met with the guy who had it offered via Julia's earlier this year while in Michigan on business. He is a direct descendant of Gen. Stephen Burbridge and the family also had both of the general's commissions signed by Stanton and Lincoln, one of them being his Brevet commission to Major General for beating Morgan at Cynthiana in 1864. One of the commissions was also sold.

Burbridge's daughter married a Michigan man and the descended family is still in Michigan with a number of other Burbridge items. Burbridge told his family that the flag was from defeat of Morgan and the only place I can find where Burbridge trounced Morgan was at Cynthiana where he routed Morgan and shattered his command. Also included with the flag was a post-war Detroit newspaper account of a Michigan solider that was captured by Morgan's men before Cynthiana but escaped and made it to Burbridge to let him know where Morgan was heading - which led directly to Burbridge's surprise attack on Morgan's camp.

It is one of the nicest First National flags I have ever seen with its star pattern and red fringe.

I also did research recently on another silk First National that will be coming up for sale soon. It was taken by a soldier of the 27th Illiinois and the flag bears his name in ink along with his regiment. In doing the research, I found that the 27th Illinois was in several of the early war battles in the west including Belmont, the KY raids of January, 1862 and the Island No. 10 Campaign of April.

I have eliminated it being from Belmont and think very strongly, but yet cannot prove conclusively, that the flag was taken in one of the phases of the Island No. 10 Campaign. I have ruled out New Madrid as the 27th Illinois was not part of that phase (several Arkansas flags taken there by Gen. Pope's men). High on my list of possibilities are Island No. 10 itself as the 27th Illinois was the first unit on that island after its abandonment and I know of two other flags taken there; or it was in the raid on Union City, TN at the tail end of the campaign. Hans Heg's report mentions several flags taken there only a couple of which can be located today (Tennessee State Museum has one sent back from Wisconsin). There were a couple Tennessee units there at the time of the raid - what would become the 7th Tennessee Cavalry and the 21st Tennessee Infantry. If I can prove this flag is from there then it is a Tennessee flag.

It has the slogan "Victory Or Death" on it and what is left of some device painted on the white bar that was done first as the letters are formed to that device and get a bit cramped as the word goes along. The flag is silk and the white bar is pretty bad off.

When I write the report for this, if I cannot find anything more details of the soldier and where he took the flag (wish he had told somebody or wrote it down) then I will only state that it is "possible" that the flag was taken in the Island No. 10 Campaign due to lack of conclusive evidence being found. The solider served every year of the war as did his regiment so it could have come from anywhere they went - but these flags with slogans tended to be captured in 1861-early 1863 and drop off a lot after that due to replacement by other flags and patterns.

If they could only talk!

Greg Biggs