Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 17.djvu/296

 288 Southern Historical Society Papers,

PICTUKESQUE FEATURES — NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS ON MEN AND FLAGS, &C.

When the head of the great column reached the top of the Main- street hill, ihe view, looking down the street, was picturesque in the extreme. A surging crowd of gazers made a thick, dark border on either side of the roadway, hemming in the moving column. Hun- dred on hundred of bayonets glinted in the noon-day sun, and every- where the colors of the Confederacy mingled with the Stars and Stripes*

OLD BATTLE- FLAGS.

One of the most interesting features of the parade was the number of old battle-flags that floated above the line. Most of these were carried by veteran organizations, though a few companies of militia carried the flags under which the command fought during the war. Altogether there were more than fifty. Some of them were State or company flags, some camp flags, but the larger number of them were the familiar flags that floated where bullets flew the thickest and marked the tide of Southern fortunes.

A FLAG THAT WENT TO PRISON.

Above the few survivors of the Third Georgia regiment there floated an old battle-flag that has had an unusual experience. When the regiment was surrendered in 1865, Colonel Claiborne cut the flag from the staff* and hid it inside his shirt. During his confinement in a northern prison he still kept it, and when he was paroled brought it back to Dixie.

Near this flag were two, of which little remained but a few scraps of faded silk. These were the flags of Cobb's Georgia Legion and the First battalion of North Carolina Sharpshooters. Both of these commands had a fiery baptism, and but few survivors remain to tell the story of their prowess.

The flag of the famous " Fighting Thirteenth * * of North Carolina is so full of bullet-holes that it scarce holds together. It was carried by the man who bore it the last two years of the war. Another fanious North Carolina flag is that of the Eighth (Colonel Shaw's) regiment. It was buried at Sugar Loaf, Virginia, at the close of the war, to save it from capture, and afterwards dug up by the color-ser- geant, who has preserved it ever since.

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