A Battlefield Promise Kept: A Mississippian Returns the Battle Flag of the 2nd Missouri

In October 1891, Kemp H. Higginbotham, formerly a private in the 44th Mississippi, traveled to St. Louis, Missouri to fulfill a promise made nearly 30 years before on the Chickamauga battlefield. During the battle, Higginbotham captured the colors of the 2nd Missouri Volunteer Infantry during the hellish fighting near Lytle’s Hill on September 20, 1863. He promised the color bearer that he would return the flag when he could. And now nearly 30 years later, he decided it was finally time to return the flag.

          The 2nd Missouri enjoyed a storied history with the Army of the Cumberland. Raised from the German community of St. Louis in the early days of the war, the 2nd Missouri saw action at Pea Ridge before transferring east of the Mississippi where it fought at Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, and beyond. The regiment was uniquely armed with .69 caliber French rifles with distinctive sword bayonets and were considered one of the best-drilled outfits in the Army of the Cumberland.

Private John Weber of Co. K of the 2nd Missouri had this image taken when the regiment was in Rienzi, Mississippi in June 1862. He stands holding one of the distinctive French-made .69 caliber short rifles with a sword bayonet in its frog hanging from his belt. Nearly 30 years later, a Mississippian would return his regiment's colors that had been lost on the field at Chickamauga. 


          But all that came to naught just before noon on that momentous Sunday in September 1863. General James Longstreet’s attack had pierced the Federal center and the 2nd Missouri, as part of Colonel Bernard Laiboldt’s brigade, had arrived in position on the left of Sheridan’s division just north of Lytle’s Hill. Laiboldt received successive orders from General Jefferson Davis, a member of General Rosecrans’ staff, and finally corps commander General Alexander McCook to charge forward to stem the Confederate tide. Laiboldt reluctantly obeyed, formed his four regiments into a column, and marched out.

The attack spelled disaster for the 2nd Missouri.

          “About 15 minutes after being formed, the command was given by Colonel Laiboldt to advance with charge bayonets,” Major Arnold Beck of the 2nd Missouri reported. “Arriving at the edge of the woods about 1,000 yards in front of us, we were received by a terrific fire from the enemy.” Major Beck’s command ran smack into the advancing line of General Zacariah Deas’ Alabamians, and being deployed in a column of regiments presenting a single battle line front, crumbled quickly. “Suffering very severely, we were obliged to fall back, leaving our dead and wounded on the field in the hands of the enemy, Beck continued. “The 2nd Missouri, being in the rear of the brigade, had no chance whatever to return the fire of the enemy without running the risk of killing our own men.”

The 44th Mississippi as part of General Patton Anderson’s Mississippi brigade followed behind Deas’ men and when they were stopped, Anderson moved into line to their right and pressed home the attack against Sheridan’s survivors. Under pressure from multiple Confederate brigades, Sheridan’s division soon followed Laiboldt’s brigade in retreat.

          Major Beck was finally able to rally his 2nd Missouri, but it had been driven back nearly a mile, leaving a trail of dead and wounded men in its wake. It also left its colors behind as Kemp Higginbotham explains.  

Private Kemp H. Higginbotham, Co. H, 44th Mississippi

          “Our regiment was cut to pieces at Chickamauga,” Higginbotham stated. “At one point, however, we had gained an advantage over the 2nd Missouri. We were in possession of ground from which most of them had been driven. I was wounded in the hand, but not seriously. In looking about, I discovered three members of the 2nd Missouri behind a pile of rails. One of these was the color bearer.”

          “I demanded their surrender and they complied turning over their arms to me,” Higginbotham continued. “We went back a short distance out of danger while I washed my wound. I found my prisoners to be very agreeable men and we soon formed quite a liking to each other. The color bearer asked me to promise to keep his flag for him and if possible, return it to him so that he could return it to the ladies who had presented it to the regiment. I promised to do so.”

          “Shortly afterward an aide-de-camp of General Longstreet demanded that I surrender the flag to him, but I refused knowing he was not the proper officer,” the Mississippian related. “He attempted to force me to give it up, but with the aid of the prisoners we retained the flag.”

Higginbotham managed to hide the flag, eventually mailing it home to his family in Mississippi. And there the flag sat for years, its fate unknown by the men of the 2nd Missouri who assumed it was just lost in the fog of war. But in the summer of 1891, Higginbotham dug out the old flag and decided it was time for it to go home.

French .69 caliber short rifle with sword bayonet similar to those carried by the 2nd Missouri at Chickamauga. 


“Several weeks ago, I determined to find some members of the 2nd Missouri and had a notice inserted in the Globe-Democrat,” he said. “I got a few answers, and afterwards corresponded with William C. Schubert of this city which led to the reunion this evening and the restoration of the flag to the regiment.”

Schubert, as vice president of the 2nd Missouri regimental association, secured the hall and invited all survivors of the regiment to attend. Nearly 40 of them attended the event, coming from as far away as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa.

The flag, “a tattered and torn silk battle flag,” was presented to the regiment by the ladies of St. Louis in 1861 before the regiment left for the front. And now thanks to the kindness and integrity of a former enemy, the colors returned home to the St. Louis community which sent them forth so many years before. As for Kemp Higginbotham, the regimental association gave him a vote of thanks as well as a “handsome purse.”

     Sources:

“A Long-Lost Banner: The 2nd Missouri’s Flag Returned by an Ex-Confederate,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat (Missouri), October 11, 1891, pg. 5

Report of Major Arnold Beck, 2nd Missouri Volunteer Infantry, O.R. Volume 30, Part 1, pg. 591

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