Retiring the colors of the 37th Wisconsin

When Quartermaster William C. Webb of the 37th Wisconsin sent his regiment’s colors back to Governor James Lewis in September 1864, his memory was drawn to the fierce devotion demonstrated by its color bearers during the fighting near Petersburg that summer. 

          “On the 17th of June, Color Sergeant William H. Green of Co. C, while carrying the flag in the action in front of Petersburg, was seriously wounded,” Webb noted. “Although it required the use of both of his hands to drag himself from the field, yet he did not abandon the glorious flag which he had so honorably borne during the storm of shot and shell into which our regiment was led. He seized the flag with his teeth and crawled off the field, taking the flag with him, drawing it fully a hundred rods with his teeth.”

          A month and a half later, the colors saw their last fight at the Battle of the Crater. Borne now by Private Reuben Shaw of Co. C, Shaw “planted the colors in full view of the Rebel batteries to the right and left, both of which soon opened upon our forces an incessant fire in which our flag was terribly cut to pieces. The flagstaff was shattered and broken and the flag was blown some distance out of the fort.”

          “The broken and shattered flagstaff and the torn and dismantled flag will plainly and eloquently speak of the bloody contests through which the gallant 37th has passed,” Webb stated. The colors had survived scarcely two and a half months of active service before they had to be retired and replaced. Lieutenant Webb's brief letter to Governor Lewis first saw publication in the September 29, 1864, edition of the Appleton Motor.

 

There was no higher honor within a regiment than to bear the colors into battle, and only the bravest men were selected for his often fatal honor. In the smoke of battle, the colors, held aloft and upwards of ten feet in the air atop a flagstaff, would sometimes be the only tangible thing visible to friends (and foes) and as a result, the colors served as a rallying point for the regiment and a target for the enemy. Mortality among the color bearers and guards was high. Sergeant Alexander Rogers, shown here carrying the tattered colors of the 83rd Pennsylvania, was killed in action May 5, 1864 at the Wilderness. 

Headquarters, Quartermaster Department, 37th Wisconsin Volunteers, near Petersburg, Virginia, September 10, 1864

To His Excellency, Governor James T. Lewis,

Sir,

          At the request of Colonel Samuel Harriman, commanding the 37th Regt. Wisconsin Volunteers, I took the war-worn battle flag of the 37th to City Point a few days since and forwarded it by Adams Express to your address. The broken and shattered flagstaff and the torn and dismantled flag will plainly and eloquently speak of the bloody contests through which the gallant 37th has passed.

          On the 16th of May, Colonel Harriman sent the flag by me to the regiment, then encamped on Arlington heights just south of Washington. On the evening of the 19th of May, I reached Camp Casey on Arlington Heights and delivered the flag to Lieutenant Colonel Anson O. Doolittle, commanding the regiment. From that time until the 30th of July it was proudly floating in the breeze at the headquarters of the regiment, or still more proudly borne at the head of the regiment in its marches and its advances upon the Rebel works on the ever-memorable days of June 17-18 and July 30.

          On the 17th of June, Color Sergeant William H. Green of Co. C, while carrying the flag in the action in front of Petersburg, was seriously wounded, and although it required the use of both of his hands to drag himself from the field, yet he did not abandon the glorious flag which he had so honorably borne during the storm of shot and shell into which our regiment was led. He seized the flag with his teeth and crawled off the field, taking the flag with him, drawing it fully a hundred rods with his teeth. Sergeant Green’s wounds proved fatal, and he died in Washington a few weeks later.

On the 18th of June, Corporal Jesse S. Hake of Co. A carried the flag and although he was in the midst of the battle that day, yet he came out unscathed. From the 18th of June to the 23rd of July, the flag was carried by Corporal Thomas E. Argue of Co. C.

From the 23rd to the 31st of July, Private Reuben D. Shaw of Co. C was color bearer and it was he who carried the flag into the Rebel fort after it had been blown up before Petersburg. He planted the colors in full view of the Rebel batteries to the right and left, both of which soon opened upon our forces an incessant fire in which our flag was terribly cut to pieces. The flagstaff was shattered and broken and the flag was blown some distance out of the fort.

At this juncture, Adjutant Claron I. Miltimore fearlessly walked out, picked up the flag, and went safely back into the fort amid a terrific fire of musketry with shot and shell by way of variations and there was not much variation about it either, for every shot and shell brought death and carnage on its wings to some of our boys.

The flag no longer being serviceable, it was rolled up and Private Shaw carried it safely from the fort on our retreat and it was afterwards placed in Colonel Harriman’s tent, where it has remained until delivered to me to be forwarded to you. Many Wisconsin regiments have sent home their battle flags bearing sad evidence of the bloody strife through which the regiments have passed. But what regiment, in so brief a period, has suffered so much in killed, wounded, and missing as the 37th Wisconsin? And what regiment, other than the 37th, has had its colors rendered so totally unserviceable in actual battle in the short space of two months and a half?

Source:

Letter from Quartermaster William C. Webb, 37th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, Appleton Motor (Wisconsin), September 29, 1864, pg. 2

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