RELIC OF ONE OF THE FIRST CAPTURED CONFEDERATE FLAGS, TAKEN IN MAY OF 1861

Autograph letter signed by Christian E. Cotton, Company A, 11th Illinois Infantry. Camp Hardin, Villa Ridge, Illinois, 2 May 1861. 2 pages, 8vo (5 × 8 in.). With an approx. 1 × 4 in. piece of red-and-white Confederate “secession” flag pinned to the sheet.

Together with: Manuscript transcript by G. R. Vanhorne, Rockford, Illinois, [ca. 1900–1910]. 2 pages, 8vo, letterhead to verso.

This letter, written in May 1861 from Camp Hardin in Illinois by Pvt. Christian E. Cotton, records that a Confederate flag “was torn down from a boat by our boys…. The whole regiment tore it in shreds.” Pinned to the letter is a piece of the very flag he describes.

Cotton formally mustered into Company A of the 11th Illinois Infantry as a musician on 30 July 1861. He was later promoted to principal musician and transferred to Field & Staff before his discharge in November 1863. In his letter he asserts that Company A had “the honor of tearing down the first secession flag” of the war. Further research may clarify the precise context of this incident

The accompanying transcript was prepared decades later by G. R. Vanhorne, director of the Memorial Museum in Rockford, Illinois. This was likely done because the original letter's had begun to fade (though it is still clearly legible).  

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs] [Relics, Militaria] [Flags, Patriotic Textiles]