State flag of the 61 St
Regiment North
Carolina Troops. The
flag includes the dates
of the Mecklenburg
Resolves and of seces¬
sion. The colors on the
state flag have tradi¬
tional meanings: red
stands for courage; blue
stands for justice; and
white stands for purity.
image courtesy of the
North Carolina Museum
of History.
by Tom Belton *
n July 3, 1863, the final,
bloody day of the Civil
War's Battle of Gettysburg,
a soldier from the 14th
Connecticut Volunteers
captured an enemy's battle flag. Tire flag
belonged to the 52nd Regiment North
Carolina Troops, which included soldiers
from almost a dozen counties. Part of
Brigadier General James Johnston Pet¬
tigrew's brigade, the 52nd suffered heavy
losses that day in Pennsylvania: 46 men
killed in action, 64 wounded, 140 wounded
and captured, and 91 captured. Tire flag —
which the U.S. War Department in Wash¬
ington, D.C., returned to the Tar Heel State
in 1905 — now is part of the North Carolina
Museum of History collection.
In the early months of the war, volunteers
joined units organized in their communi¬
ties. Approximately 100 men made up each
of these units, called companies. Companies
frequently took names that identified their
homes, such as the Clayton Yellow Jackets,
the Forsyth Rifles, or the Rutherford Rifles.
Ten companies completed a regiment of
approximately 1,000 men. During elabo¬
rate ceremonies held before they left for
war, companies often were presented with
flags made by local women. Sometimes
these flags had been sewn from the silk of
women's dresses, which made them more
personal. For the soldiers who marched
away to an uncertain future, company
flags represented the love and support of
family, friends, and communities.
While many symbols represent the Civil
War, few have evoked more emotion
than flags. Even though North Carolina's
role and experience in the Civil War hold
enormous historical importance, most
modern Tar Heels remain unaware of all
the flags associated with North Carolina
and the Confederacy. The state's Confeder¬
ate troops carried and fought under four
different kinds of flags: (1) state flags; (2)
company flags; (3) national flags; and (4)
battle flags. Today, these banners have be¬
come artifacts that help tell the story of the
Civil War and those who fought it.
Before North Carolina withdrew from
the Union on May 20, 1861, the state had
no official flag. The State Convention in
Raleigh had to address this need. On June
22 the convention approved an official
North Carolina flag. During the Civil War,
regiments from both North and South were
organized at the state level. They carried
numerical state regimental designations,
such as the 21st North Carolina or the 21st
New York. State flags became symbols of
state pride when regiments displayed them
on the march or carried them into battle.
As a new nation, the Confederate States of
America needed a flag to illustrate its na¬
tional identity. On March 4, 1861, the Provi¬
sional Congress of the Confederacy ap¬
proved a national flag. This flag consisted
of a red field with a white bar in the center,
along with a blue canton (a square) in the
upper left corner. Within the canton, a circle
of white stars represented the states of the
Confederacy. This flag became known as
the "Stars and
Bars."
Unfortunately,
in battle, the
design created
chaos. The flag
could easily be
mistaken for the
United States
flag, called
the "Stars and
Stripes." In 1863
Confederate of¬
ficials replaced
the "Stars and
Bars" with
another national
TR]H, Spring 2011 "Tom Belton served as curator of military history for Hie North Carolina Museum of His¬
tory. He started work at the museum m January 1979 as the secretary of the Tar Heel Junior
Historian Association. Belton retired April 29, 2 OH. the day of this year's THJHA Annual
Convention. He will be working on a book about the museum flag collection.
