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Battle flags of the 1st Texas at Antietam
1st Texas Infantry, Hood's Brigade, Lone Star Flag
This is a Lone Star flag inscribed with the battle honors, "Seven Pines/Gaines Farm" in the blue canton, and "Elthams Landing/Malvern Hill" in the field. This very important flag was made by Lula Wigfall, daughter of the regiment's first colonel, Louis T. Wigfall, and was presented to the 1st Texas in the summer of 1861.
As the battle honors attest, the 1st Texas fought under this flag throughout the Peninsula Campaign. The Texans carried it through the Second Manassas fight in August 1862 and into Maryland during Lee's first invasion of the North. During the desperate Battle of Antietam, in Miller's cornfield on Lee's northern flank, the 1st Texas suffered 82.3 percent casualties -- the highest endured by any unit North or South during the entire war. In the course of the battle, nine brave Texas standard bearers fell carrying this flag. When the ninth was killed, the flag was lost -- picked up from among the dead bodies by a Pennsylvania private
1st Texas Infantry, Hood's Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia (ANV) pattern battle flag (classic Saint Andrews cross on red field)
This flag was the companion to the Lone Star banner above. During the spring and summer of 1862, the Army of Northern Virginia began to issue factory-made battle flags. This flag is a variant of the so-called first bunting issue, and probably was meant by army commanders to be the official flag of the 1st Texas. The soldiers, however, continued to favor their state flag, but carried both into battle. The ANV flag was lost in Miller's cornfield at the same moment as the state flag, being picked up by the same Pennsylvania private. Both flags were relegated to the War Department after the war and languished until 1905 when President Theodore Roosevelt returned them to Texas as part of a gesture of national reconciliation.
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