Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/309

 P. S.—Upon consultation with Comrades—all present and participating—Colonel Peters has corrected the above noted flag incident : The flag presented to the First Maryland at Fairfax Station, Va.—made in Baltimore and brought by the Misses Cary—was the regimental (State) flag, and thereafter was carried until the muster out of the regiment, August 17, 1862—an ill advised, injust and unfortunate act, done at the War Office, Richmond. The three regulation battle-flags were presented to the three distinguished Generals at Centreville, Va., while the First Maryland was encamped there and were cognizant of what occurred.

MONUMENT TO CONFEDERATES.

To be Erected at Point Lookout, Md., by United States Government—Central Monument with Bronze Tablets.

Graves Cannot be Identified—Special Enactments by Congress. A large masonry monument is to be erected at Point Lookout, Md., by the United States Government in memory of 3,384 Confederate soldiers and sailors who died in Northern prisons during the War between the States and are now buried in that vicinity.

A contract for the construction of the monument has been let by the War Department, but it could not be built without authority from Congress, as the Foraker Act, passed in 1906, providing for the marking of the graves of Confederates who died in Northern prisons, directed the War Department to erect over every such grave a white marble headstone.

This work has been in progress during the past four years, under the direction, first, of Colonel William Elliott, of South Carolina, the Commissioner for that purpose, appointed in March,