Hello,

I wrote the report for Julia's for this flag and cited two articles, one from an 1864 Illinois newspaper and the other from a post-war National Tribune article, that both stated the 10th Illinois took a flag from Jeff Thompson in the Island No. Ten Campaign near Sikeston on March 1st at the start of that campaign.

Thompson's memoir states he posted his flag (he called it a "staff") with his battery of one pounders for a stand on the road from Sikeston to New Madrid and then he got hammered and chased to within four miles of the latter town. The OR report of the 10th Illinois states that they took a flag there. The 1864 Illinois newspaper article mentions only one flag taken to that point in their wartime career - they were home on veteran furlough and were at a function with speeches, etc. and this was the only flag that got mentioned. Same for the National Tribune article written by a 10th Illinois veteran. Captain Edward Sylla mustered out of the 10th Illinois for health reasons in June 1862 so any flag that came from him had to have come from this campaign as, if you check their record up to this point, the regiment had yet to be engaged in any real fight before March 1st, 1862. With an OR report, one wartime newspaper and one post-war newspaper stating the flag came from this campaign, and, in the case of the two newspapers, from Jeff Thompson, not hard to connect these dots.

Now - having said that, was it Thompson's personal flag? Was it the flag of the Missouri battery of six guns? Was it a flag of one other group of the 80-90 men that was with Thompson in this fight near Sikeston? Thompson called it his "staff" that he posted by the battery and his memoir makes only one mention of anything resembling a flag. But we still do not know for sure. However, the evidence aims powerfully at the flag being auctioned being taken near Sikeston barring any new evidence that might turn up. This was what I came to for a conclusion in the report. How the name "Jeff Thompson's Legion" came about when such a unit never existed that I know of I do not know.

By the way, the letter dated 1960 that comes with this from Sylla's grand-niece that tells of this flag also tells of his brother William (and grand father of the letter writer), he being of the 36th Illinois for a time and later the 67th Illinois and of a second flag that the family owned. Nothing mentioned about it including any capture details.

Greg Biggs