Ben,

I think the flag was indeed carried in battle in 1864 - there's damage on the flag that did not come from bugs. What we exactly do not know - and will never know unless we find letters or the diary of the Indiana artilleryman that got the flag, how it was taken by him.

Did he serve in the front lines at Nashville with his battery and took the flag from a color bearer? Did he find it lying on the ground after the Confederates fell back? Did he trade for it with the guy that did take the flag? Was it replaced by another flag when the 5th Mississippi joined - or did they also carry their flag in battle despite this? In 1863 at Chickamauga I have details for two sets of combined Tennessee regiments that indeed carried both of their flags in that battle as their color bearers were mentioned in reports. The only Confederate regulation about discarding flags for combined regiments that I have ever found comes in 1865 after several regiments of company size were melded into one.

We will just never know and until the sources that I mentioned turns up with this detailed information everything else is sheer speculation. We also need Mississippi sources for more details. We do know the Indiana soldier was at Nashville. If none of these sources ever turn up then we know what we know and the rest will remain unknown.

Greg Biggs