Greg
.. Chancellorsville... I went back through more of my notes and found notes on an inquiry sent to me about a year ago about a relationship between NJ and a flag thought to be that of the 21st Va.. NJ had returned a number of flags in their collection to the respective southern states and asked where the 21st Va flag went etc. These were reportedly associated with the 7th NJ and 5th NJ at Chancellorsville. Noted early that two of the captured flags belonged to the 2nd NC.. a battle flag and a regimental standard... 1st La, and a couple others.. I found various id's flip flopped around as folks were trying to identify those remaining unidentified.. One of these was thought to be the 21st Va.

When I reexamined the action itself the NJ units caught the advancing Confederates in flank, and their fire broke up the advance repeatedly on that part of the line and the Confederates withdrew abandoning a fair number of colors left upon the field. The 7th NJ claimed to have picked up about a half dozen, and I think the 5th NJ claimed three. Only a couple of them could be indentified at the time. Since the flags gathered up and those indentified all came from units of different commands, I found it rather difficult to try to place identity or confirmation upon those others. If it had been only one confederate brigade involved the task would have been much easier, but it appeared to be multiple mixed commands. At the time I did not find sufficient historical evidence to be able to confirm or even place an educated guess that it might have been the flag of the 21st. Hopefully Eric at NPS found more information than I had at the time. Do you happen to know which flag they have in NJ that is reportedly this 21st Va flag?.. Would like to study the details and design of it... I heard that NJ has one of them on loan to NPS there on display but didnt know which one it was.

The WD-22 is the one thought to have been lost at Culps Hill/Gettysburg correct?.

I would like to be able to figure out what company originally had that flag... another lengthy research project underway...lol..

The artist may very well have been in Petersburg. I was going on Richmond since I had seen a number of others of a similar style associated with other Richmond area units. As mentioned the early 21st Co.F company flag has a similar artistic flare of the painting upon it. The canton painted FN's seem to have been popular in those early months. WD-24 in MOC collection is very similar. Another FN with inscribed painted canton. Both flag details and sizes are nearly identical. WD-24 is identified to the 20th Va and lost it at Rich Mtn in 1861.

Frederick