The following was written by John Cook Birdsong, Company B, 12th VA, at Raleigh NC, March 1907 and published in The Times-Dispatch, Richmond, VA, 31 March 1907, pg. 2A, col. 2.

"Error As To Flags of 12th Virginia
That Regiment Fought Its Last Battle Near Farmville, Not as Sailor's Creek.
Editor of the Times-Dispatch:
Sir,--A few days ago I read a list of battleflags now deposited in the Confederate Museum, viz:
"No. 74 (original No. 333), Twelfth Virginia Infantry. Regulation battleflag. Twelve stars; well preserved. * * * Captured in Battle of Sailor's Creek."
This is certainly an error. The only engagement the Twelfth Virginia had with the Federals after leaving the trenches at Petersburg (and before the surrender), was near Farmville, at a church (brick, I think), and we lost no flag there. This is corroborated by Captain Thos. P. Pollard, now a resident of Raleigh, who commanded Company H, Twelfth Virginia.
Again:
"No. 71 (original No. 437). Twelfth Virginia Infantry. Well preserved, bullet-marked, regulation battleflag,"etc. I presume this was intended to mean the one carried from Petersburg to Appomattox. If so, there is another error, for the regimental flag was carried by Color-Bearer Smith, and was not surrendered. When the regiment stacked arms after the surrender the flag was cut up by the boys, and I remember that Captain Pollard got the centre star, Color-Bearer Smith got a part, and I got a star from the righthand lower corner, and the flag that we carried to Appomattox had inscribed on the blue ground the names of the important battles in which the old Twelfth Virginia participated."