With the 1st Wisconsin at Chaplin Hills

     Quartermaster Harry Bingham, formerly of the 1st Wisconsin Volunteers, kept his collection of Civil War relics in a display case in his office in Cleveland, Ohio. Bingham had served about a year and a half with the regiment, and had seen much service in the western theater. Among Bingham's most prized relics were items connected with the regimental colors. "When the 1st Wisconsin regiment of volunteer infantry was formed, they received from the friends of a regiment a piece of the halyard which elevated the Stars and Stripes above Sumter previous to its capture by traitors; also a piece of the flag carried by Washington's Body Guard," reported the Cleveland Morning Leader in July 1863. "These relics were grafted into the flag staff which carried the colors of the 1st Wisconsin. On receiving these colors hallowed by the above relics, the regiment on their bended knees swore to defend them with their lives and never to dishonor them. Nobly have they fulfilled that pledge. The colors are now deposited at the capital in Madison. The flagstaff was three times cut in two at the Battle of Chaplin Hills, and the flag has 260 ball holes in it." When the colors were returned to Wisconsin, Bingham was allowed to keep the halyard and the piece of flag from Washington's Body Guard.  

Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, October 8, 1862


    The relics had come a long way from Camp Scott in Milwaukee. It was Wednesday, May 8, 1861, when Mrs. George Walker, on behalf of the ladies of Milwaukee, presented the 1st Wisconsin with their colors. It was done "in a very neat and appropriate manner," remembered one member of the regiment, "with as good a speech as you ever listened to which was followed by remarks from Governor Randall. Upon the reception of the flag, Colonel Starkweather called the regiment to order and upon their bended knees they swore ever to protect it at all hazards. It was a very touching and effecting time with the men. The regiment then selected the corporals of the color guard." 

Five soldiers of Co. C, 1st Wisconsin Infantry
Wisconsin Historical Society


    It was exactly 17 months later on another Wednesday when the colors of the 1st Wisconsin became forever entwined with the story of the Battle of Perryville. It was upon a hot, parched, Indian summer afternoon upon Chaplin Hills near Perryville, Kentucky. "One of the bloodiest battles of the war was fought yesterday afternoon near a small town called Perryville," wrote Sergeant Major Thomas Bryant. "Our regiment was placed on the extreme right of the line to support the 4th Indiana Battery. The 105th Ohio was in the extreme advance of us, also supporting a battery, and in the rear of it and in front of us was the 21st Wisconsin. The Ohio regiment found the fire to be too hot for them, and fell back in some disorder and the enemy succeeded in taking the battery supported by them. The Rebels then advanced on the 21st Wisconsin who received them with a warm fire. The stood their ground manfully for a short time, but the enemy was too strong and they fell back and reformed on the left of us."

A later set of national colors belonging to the 1st Wisconsin
Wisconsin Veterans Museum


    "On came the enemy, the battery playing into them with grape and canister. The 1st Wisconsin was lying on the ground in the rear of the guns. Notwithstanding the balls were flying around like hail, not a man moved till the order came to fire, when the gallant boys sprang up and delivered into the enemy a volley that fairly staggered them. They commenced the work of death," Bryant continued.

    "The distance between us and the enemy was not more than three rods. For a long 20 minutes, the firing was terrific. Generals McCook and Rousseau say that the Battle of Shiloh did not begin to compare with the fighting of yesterday. There were two or three regiments contending against us and for a time the enemy seemed determined to have the battery at any cost. The brave boys dropped thick and fast, but they stood firm and never flinched, until soon the enemy made a hasty and disorderly retreat. As the enemy seemed to be massing at a distance towards our left and our regiment was unsupported, the order was given to fall back and a large number of the battery horses were killed and we were forced to haul the battery off by hand," he stated.

Flag captured by the 1st Wisconsin at Perryville


    "Our regiment captured a stand of colors from the enemy, but our flag was pierced by more than 50 bullets and the flag staff cut into three pieces," Bryant noted. "Our regiment went into the fight with about 380 men and came out with 158 effective men; its loss in killed 58, wounded 124, missing 34, and prisoners 6."

Surgeon Lucius J. Dixon, 1st Wisconsin
Wisconsin Historical Society



      It was believed at the time that the captured colors belonged to the 1st Tennessee Infantry led by Colonel Hume R. Feild and belonging to General George Maney's Brigade of General Cheatham's Division of Polk's Corps. "The 1st Tennessee was opposed to us when the flag was captured," wrote Ernst G. Timme, who was wounded at Perryville while serving as a private in Co. C of the 1st Wisconsin. "That it was carried by brave men, the evidence on the flag speaks for itself."

    The colors, described as "four feet long, two feet wide, with a red cross with eleven white stars on a blue ground, and made was very cheap material" was captured by Private Morris S. Rice of Co. H of the 1st Wisconsin. A news article from 1862 states that in the immediate vicinity of the capture, five Federal soldiers were killed and seven wounded while the dead bodies of eleven Confederates lay about the field, along with twelve wounded Rebels. "The flag has several bullet holes in it, but has been remarkably well-preserved."

    The prized colors were placed on display in an ante-room of the Governor's mansion in Madison, Wisconsin, but after the war became property of the 1st Wisconsin Regimental Association. In 1905, the flag was sent to the reunion of the 1st Tennessee in Nashville to determine if the flag actually belonged to the 1st Tennessee; it turned out that it did not, and the members of the 1st Tennessee stated that they did not lose any flags during the war up until they surrendered in April 1865. "The noticeable fact and one that will do lasting good, however, is the spirit manifested by these veterans of the Union Army in the effort to restore the flag, in the spirit so manifestly kind and patriotic," noted the editors of Confederate Veteran in 1905. 

The identity of the flag remains an open question with some speculation that it belonged to the 4th Tennessee. 

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