when he lost, he did everything he could to get back what was his. but, you know, as he said, you your friends and suffer the consequences. thank you very much. negr [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] located in downtown richmond, the white house of the confederacy is where confederate president jefferson davis and his family lived from 1861 until the evacuation of richmond in april, 1855. following the end of the war, it became a headquarters for the u.s. army and in 1870 was given back to the city of richmond. the home has since been restored and is open to the public as museum. continuing our look at richmond, we will visit the american civil war museum and take a look at the largest collection of confederate flags in the country.

ms. wright: we are at richmond virginia one of the sites for the american civil war museum in the flag vault. today we focus on the flight collection which is the largest collection of civil war related flags in the world. we have more than 700 flags. of those, about 550 are full-sized civil war era flag, and the majority are confederate but we do have union flags as well. americaederate -- of formed in march 1860 one p read one of the first orders of business was to select a design for their national flag. the flag we are looking at here is one example of that flag pattern. this is known as the first national flag, because the confederacy would ultimately go through three different designs. this one was very muc reminiscent of the united states flight. that was done on purpose because many southerners had served in the army or otherwise felt some affection for the old union and they did not want to completely

dispense with many of the symbols and emblems of the united states. so, rather than having 13 stripes, recently have three, red, white, red, and one star for each statement was officially part of the confederacy. because southern states were and joiningunion the confederacy throughout the spring of 1861, the number of stars started out at seven and ultimately went up to officially 11. although, sometimes they would also actually include as many as 13 or even 15, which a very optimistically was including places such as the arizona territory or southern california. this particular flight was carried as a battle flag by a regiment that was in the third florida infantry. this was the flag that was carried by company d. every company that was part of a regiment did have their own flag.

but this ultimately resulted in a lot of confusion on the battlefield, as companies had a wide variety of different types of flag patterns they were carrying, and it was ultimately decided after the battle of first bull run in july 1861, that all of the company flags were to be sent home and each regiment would be issued one official battle flag. each confederate army selected a itferent design of the flag would carry. this particular design is known as the army of northern virginia flag pattern. this would have been carried by every regiment fighting under general robert e. lee throughout the war. other generals in charge of other armies could basically pick whatever pattern they wanted. thistangle or version of has become what most of us today considered to be the " confederate flag," but at the time, this square pattern was the one that would've been carried only by regiments serving under general lee. this particular one was chosen

by the army of northern virginia. because it was actually submitted as a design by someone who had studied flag design and the elements of good design can for instance, the fact that there is a white edge they goes in between the red and blue portions which helped to give a bit of visual distance in. that was very important -- visual distance them. that was very important. this flag was marked and the center with a unit designation. this was carried by the 47th infantry. in each of the red areas on the flag, you can see there are what are referred to as battle honors. and the regiment would have somehow decided which battle they felt were worth remembering. these would've been notable battles for them. notable about a lot of these flags is that they were often captured by union soldiers. so the number that you see stenciled here on the part of the flag that would've been attached is referred to as a war

department number. this flag actually was captured in battle. it was captured a few days after the battle of gettysburg in 186 3. and it was turned into the united states war department because capturing a flag was one of the ways a union soldier could receive the medal of honor. and the war department kept a record of all of the flags that were turned into them, and they would also capture such information as the date of flag was captured and who had captured it. on the union side, each regiment typically carried to flags. they had a regimental flag, as well as united states national flag. example of thee variety of regimental flags that could've been carried in the union army. sometimes they would carry basically a large version of their state flag. but this was, this became the much more common version with the federal eagle grasping the arrow and the follow branch in its claws. had the regiment that carried

this flight headed for very much longer they would have their name written on this red banner. but you know they did not have a chance to carry it for very long. this was actually captured by soldiers in the confederate army. this flag remained in private hands in the south till it was donated to the museum in the early 1920's. south, the case of the captured flags would've been sent to richmond, and richmond, of course, burned in the evacuation fire in april 1855. so any flags that have been captured by soldiers and returned turned into the confederate war department probably were destroyed in that fire in 1865. so, it is only flags that were captured and not sent in officially, things that were sent back home or were cap to buy the soldiers until they themselves returned home, that managed to survive. this is an example of the united states national flag that would've been carried as well as a regimental banner. kind ofticular one is

interesting because it was issued to the first regiment maryland volunteers. maryland, being a border state, had regiments that fought for both sides during the war. believe, the only state that actually had a first maryland united states and a first maryland confederate states regiment. and there was one notable battle in which they actually faced off against each other, which was the battle of front royal in 1862. and that is where this particular flight was captured. bearer was a difficult job. not only because of the size of these flags but because you could not really carry a weapon simultaneously. you are essentially making yourself a big target. lor they are on either side was a big honor. and there are numerous battles where we have stories of color bearers who are shot down and another person stepping forward

to carry them forward. having a flag captured was considered basically a terrible thing. and if there were any men left in the regiment who able to pick up the colors, they would. having a flag captured became a symbol that that regiment had been all but destined -- decimated during a particular battle. this is another flag with a really interesting story behind it. you probably notice that there is only half of the flag here. this flag was donated to us a few years ago, actually, by a woman who was a descendent of the union soldier who served in the 4030 indiana infantry. 43rd indiana infantry. hebert's debated and sherman's march going through georgia, south carolina and north carolina -- he participated in sherman's march. in 1865. the story that was passed on along with the flag is that he and another soldier went into a

barn and they believe that it was in south carolina. and found this flag hidden there. and they proceeded to argue over who was going to get to keep the flag. so, their solution was to cut it in half. in each of them was going to keep one half of the flag. so, fortunately for us, the portion that her ancestor kept does have a partial unit nickname or designation on it. which has means light infantry. through our research, we have been able to determine that that 2th southte f of the 1 carolina infantry. it is really unfortunate that this beautiful flag with a nice oil tainted decide which features a flag itself in the center, -- oil tainted design, that only half of it survive. i cross my fingers that the descendents of the other union soldier may still have the other bottom half of it somewhere. this is a flag that is a completely unique design, that

as long as we know that this is the all late surviving example of this flag and probably either was never -- of this flag. the women from a town called gordonsville, virginia, made this flag. hadresented it -- they captured several union soldiers and told them that they thought that the unusual design of this flag meant that the confederate troops meant to fight to the bitter end, meaning that they did not intend to take any prisoners. which was not the intent of the confederates carrying the flag. we do not know if it was x on this blue or the starburst that gave the impression that that is what the flag meant, but it was certainly a message that made the union troops fight really, really hard during that battle. and since the confederates hadn't intended to send that particular message, and certainly did not want every other union regiment which they

encountered to think the same thing, and such a grueling fight, they decided not to use it again. the museum strives to preserve all of these flags for future generations to be able to study and enjoy. conservedlag can be professionally, our first step is complete to preserve them as they currently exist. in the case of silk flags, such as this one, silk is a fabric that will start to fall apart if you fold it. and you certain you do not want any sharp creases. the best way to store these is flat. given that a lot of them are quite large. this is often not an option. in cases such as flags like this, we try to keep it as flat as possible. and we keep in archival milar which is one layer on top and one layer on bottom. this allows us to store the

flight so that when we are picking it up, we are only picking up the panel. the milar gives it a nice, gentle roll, rather than a sharp crease. with this particular flag, the silk has a lot of previous damaged to it. here we can see it has started to disintegrate. and sometimes this is due to the way that the dye was applied to the fabric when it was first made. there are all kinds of chemicals and things and a wide friday of places where the silk kit-- and a wide variety of where the silk came from. before best we can do having this taken to a professional textile conservator and having them begin their work is sadly to keep it stored as carefully as possible and -- in a stable environment. we are looking at a virginia state flag that was carried by an unidentified virginia regiment in the civil war.

unfortunately, sometimes for those of us working in museums today, the work of conserving a flag begins with on doing the work that others may have done to the flag in the past. look at this flag closely, you'll notice that there is a zig zag stitching all over the flag with most notable on the dark portions but goes right through this hand-painted seal. you will also notice that there is kind of two different colors of fblue. a darker blue than ends here on the far right side. and there is a much lighter blue which then comprises the entire far right end of the flag. back in the 1940's, a very well-meaning group of people who were textile conservators of their day decided that this pattern flight to do needed to be fixed up and stabilize. their method of doing that was to sew the remaining flag onto a backing that roughly

approximated the color of the original and then to run the entire thing back and forth through a sewing machine. many, many times. we now know that this process is very invasive. sewing machine needles punched holes in the flag that they were doing all of that stitching, which is problematic on the handsewn portion, where the needle also was passing through paint. is nowadays what would we do we would actually remove the sewing machines that came from this flag as well as remove the backing fabric which had been attached. because we do not want the blue modern fabric to be possibly discoloring the back of this virginia state seal or even any portions of the original flag itself. so, this is a very painstaking process. and this is one level of conservation we will actually do

at the museum in house, because it can save quite a lot of time and money from the overall conservation process once we take it to the conservator. sort of, a very, mentally and somewhat physically grueling process because it involves taking a very tiny pair of scissors and tweezers and essentially cutting the sewing samene threads at the point all the way across for each row of stitching and then pulling them out. and you have to be very careful when you are doing it because the goal is not to cut any of the original fibers of the flag, but only the modern stitching. so, because this was done in a variety of ways, sometimes the best thing to do is to put the flag -- flip the flag over and cut out the stitching starting from the backside of the flag. once you actually go through and cut a line of stitches, you will then flip the flag back over and

very carefully pull all of them out. it is easier to work from the back of the flag sometimes, also, because the fabric i am working with here is the backing fabric which is the modern fabric, not the original fabric of the flag. it's something removing the stitches row by row. somewhere in here. now, a lot of times these threads are very brittle and are kind of dry rotting. so, it is easy to go in and pull them out. here we go. starting to get a nice little runs of the stitches that you can start to pull out and cut them all on the back. so, this becomes the first step of conserving a flag like this that has been treated in this way. because once you get all of that done, then you can start to arrange and flatten all of the original portions of the flag and really start to get it back into the original shape. we try to be cautious about the treatment methods which and we

employ to conserve these flags because we want to take a long-term approach to it and think through all of the possible implications of any given treatment method to ensure that what we're doing now is something that is not going to cause permanent harm to the item overtime. we hope that people will want to learn a variety of things from these flag collections. as works can be viewed of art. there is a lot of artistry behind a lot of these that are, painting, orf the the beautiful way that they are sewn together. knowing that the source of things that the people were fighting and in many cases dying for underneath these flags in a literal way. makes them very powerful, messengers to us. >> recently, american history tv was at the american historical