I have seen the flag and there is NO evidence of a rope for attachment that I saw nor is there a pole sleeve for such a rope. In fact, there are the remains of a tie for attachment to its staff on the lower left corner in the picture that I have (not the same one from the Julia's catalog).

This flag was made from a light weight cotton ,material, much lighter than bunting and if it was for a building or similar it would not have lasted more than a few days in a stiff breeze before being shredded. It shows no such evidence as having been flown from any building (torn or worn hoist edge and tattered fly end). When I picked the flag up in March of this year I could not believe how light it was.

CS First Nationals in 1864 for western cavalry units are not that uncommon. In fact, they were quite common in Forrest's Corps until July, 1864 when his command finally got their Mobile Depot battle flags. I did an essay on these cavalry flags earlier this year for a state publication complete with Howie's scale drawings (used by permission I might ad) and the main thesis was that unlike the CS cavalry in the East, which started down the standardization road in November, 1861 for their flags, the first instance of any large scale attempt for this in the west was in October, 1863 when William Jackson's Division got the first Mobile Depot flags. Joe Wheeler's Cavalry Corps got their Augusta Depot flags in early 1864 and more Mobile Depot flags were issued to cavalry commands in the Dept. of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana from then until Forrest's troopers got them.

A surviving Bragg pattern flag (rectangular version) for the 1st Alabama Cavalry (taken in KY in October, 1862) exists in private hands and that flag seems to be an anomaly more than a pattern for all of the remaining Bragg flags were for infantry units of his corps which never included cavalry commands. The latter operated under seprate division or corps commanders as separate structures for the AOT and were thus not subject to any flag patterns of the infantry corps.

By the way, this flag was sent to Cleveland during the war where it was displayed at their sanitary fair in 1863. It was donated to the Western Reserve Historical Society in the early 1940s and at some point after that it was stolen from that institution. I was there doing research two years ago and asked to see this flag and they could not find it. It has not been de-accessioned either! I have since informed them of where the flag is today in case they want to go after it.

I have First National cavalry flags in the west being used in 1863-1864 by units outside of Forrest's command as well. The First National flag of the 1st Alabama Cavalry was taken in May, 1863 by the 4th Michigan Cavalry. The flag is quite large for a cavalry banner (I guess it must have come from a fort or building instead) and, in fact is just three inches shy of 6 feet long and is over 4 feet wide! I have seen this flag in Alabama and it is wool bunting and thus much heavier. The TN State Museum has several long First National flags in their collections albeit for infantry units, but the point is that large flags were used by units at times in the war and the very existence of such flags is more than ample proof of that fact.

Morgan's command in 1864 was scraped together from those few men who escaped from Ohio at Buffington Island and later and according to the sources I used, independent companies were added to his new command as he could garner them in. Thus the possibility of one or more using First Nationals is not out of the realm or probability. As Morgan was operating at the time under the command of the District of SE Virginia, which made no efforts to standardize flags that I have ever found, Morgan's new units used whatever they brought with them or were made for them.

The flag does have bullet holes in it. The three on the top bar line up when you furl the flag and this indicates that it might have been furled when Burbridges' men hit Morgan's camp at Cynthiana in their surprise attack. The two holes on the bottom bar also somewhat line up so this is indeed possible.

This may have been an HQ flag for Morgan or it may have been the colors of one of his new units - we just do not know. But the family lore has it as taken from Morgan and the only place in the research that I could find where Morgan and Burbridge were on the same field together was Cynthiana, KY in 1864. This is why, I was told, that the Detroit newspaper article about the Michigan soldier at the battle was always kept with the flag over the many years.

I looked at all of the battles where Burbridge commanded troops as a general officer and that included the Vicksburg Campaign and Arkansas Post. I have found no citations for him taking flags at either but that still remains possible for its source of capture. I kept coming back to the family lore about Morgan (which is very consistent) and the Detroit newspaper article on Cynthiana and how Morgan got his ass handed to him there and his command was scattered and routed. After weighing all the evidence and concluding that what Burbridge told his family, then his capture story must be true so that's what I went with based on what I learned.

You can doubt my conclusions all you want and I really don't care, but I followed the clues and made my conclusions from them. I do not assume that Burbridge was lying to his own family.

Greg Biggs