The following quotes are from an article written by "Color Corporal," published in The Richmond Dispatch, 16 February 1902, pg. 9, cols. 2-3.
"When the cannonading ceased, the brigade advanced to the top of the hill, where a halt was made for a short time, and at that time General Armistead came up to Color-Sergeant Blackwell, of the Fifty-Third Regiment, which was the battalion of direction of Armistead's Brigade, and pointing to the enemy's breastworks, said: "Sergeant, I want you and your men to plant your colors on those works. Do you think you can do it?" The Sergeant replied, "Yes, sir; if God is willing." Then the General, taking out a small flask, told him to take some, which he did. I hoped he would pass it to the guard also, but he did not."
"My position that day, was on Blackwell's left with General Armistead and Colonel Martin immediately in front of me."
". . .about seventy-five yards from the stone wall. . . Blackwell, the color-bearer, was now shot down. I seized the colors, but Color-Guard Scott snatched them out of my hands, and ran about fifteen feet out ahead of the brigade, and waved them. He was instantly shot, and Robert Tyler Jones ran forward and picked them up. I was wounded here, a piece of shell wounding me in the head. Up to this time our brigade had not fired a gun."
"When Jones took the colors he was wounded in the arm, but continued to advance until he reached the stone wall, when he leaped on top and waved them triumphantly, but was again shot, and fell forward severely wounded."
"When Jones fell from the wall, Lieutenant H. L. Carter seized the colors and ran forward among the artillery, which the enemy had now abandoned, and fled from."
". . .Lieutenant Carter, finding himself alone in the enemy's lines, surrendered, and was sent, a prisoner to the rear, leaving the flag among the guns."
"The flag of the Fifty-third Virginia Regiment had been carried to the farthest point in the enemy's lines that day. Of its ten guards, eight were killed outright -- Jones and myself severely wounded."
"Last winter, on learning that Congress would return old Confederate flags, I wrote and tried to get that of the Fifty-third Virginia Regiment, but on investigation it was found to have been lent out soon after the war closed to adorn some festival in the North, and it had never been returned."