13th Alabama Battle Flag

The 13th Alabama Battle Flag.

Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Flag of the 13^th Alabama Infantry

Gettysburg National Military Park, in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History and Gettysburg Foundation, now brings to its visitors the opportunity to see a unique artifact closely tied the Battle of Gettysburg. Until February 2027, the park will exhibit the battle flag of the 13^th Alabama Infantry Regiment in the main museum gallery of its Museum and Visitor Center. The flag returns to Gettysburg for the first time since 1863, when it witnessed seminal events of the battle unfolded over the first three days of July that year.

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The 13th Alabama Infantry and its battle flag at Gettysburg

The 13^th Alabama Infantry approached Gettysburg in the early morning of July 1. The regiment’s Private E.T. Boland recalled that “Colonel Birkett Fry (the regimental commander) rode back to the color bearer and ordered him to uncase the colors . . . the first intimation that we had that we were about to engage the enemy.” The regiment deployed on the west side of Willoughby Run and, around 10 AM, it advanced and encountered forces of the Army of the Potomac’s First Corps beyond the run – notably the famous “Iron Brigade”. As the fighting intensified, Federal troops appeared on the regiment’s right flank, resulting in the capture of approximately 100 of its soldiers and forcing the remainder back across the run. Before the withdrawal, however, Private William Castleberry tore the 13^th Alabama Infantry’s battle flag from its staff, saving it from capture.

Just two days later, the flag would meet a different fate. On the afternoon of July 3, the 13^th Alabama Infantry and other Confederate forces attacked Federal positions on Cemetery Ridge as part of coordinated attack known as Longstreet’s Assault (or “Pickett’s Charge”). One of the Federal commanders on Cemetery Ridge - General Alexander Hays - recalled that the Confederates “advanced across the plain and were met from behind our stone wall by a volley which swept them like a tornado.” As the Alabamians met this incredible resistance, the 1st Delaware Infantry leapt over a portion of this stone wall and charged the Confederate attackers. During this charge and ensuing chaos, the 1^st Delaware Infantry captured three Confederate regimental banners, including that of the 13^th Alabama Infantry. This was among 38 Confederate battle flags captured by the end of the assault out of the 50 Confederate regiments engaged. General Hayes noted that “such a capture of flags was never known before”. After the battle, Colonel Fry—now a Federal prisoner—reflected that, earlier in the morning, he had noticed the regimental color bearer had “attached his staff to a formidable looking pike” and that he was now gazing upon a Federal soldier with an ugly shoulder wound from the point of that very pike.

Private Bernard McCarren of Company C, 1^st Delaware Infantry, was credited with the capture of the flag of the 13^th Alabama Infantry. A ship carpenter and Irish immigrant from County Donegal, McCarren had previously tried to serve his adoptive country by enlisting in the US regular army in 1853 but was rejected upon examination for reasons unknown. On September 25, 1861, however, he enlisted in the 1st Delaware Infantry. For his actions during “Pickett’s Charge,” he received the Congressional Medal of Honor for “gallantry in capturing a rebel flag” on October 26, 1864. After Gettysburg, he sustained wounds at the Battle of the Wilderness (May 6, 1864) and later transferred to the Veteran’s Reserve Corps (an organization for those unfit for active field service but still fit for garrison or light duties). He mustered out of service after the conclusion of the war on July 12, 1865.

The 13^th Alabama Infantry arrived at Gettysburg with 342 men and suffered 214 casualties (killed, wounded, or captured) over the three days of battle – a casualty rate of 62%. The captured flag, like others taken that day, made its way to the War Department in Washington, D.C. where it remained until returned to the state of Alabama in 1905. Now, after 162 years, it has returned to Gettysburg to be seen again.

Richmond Clothing Bureau

The flag itself is a product of the Confederacy’s Richmond Clothing Bureau (RCB). The RCB opened in May 1861, situated in an old warehouse at 15th and Carey Street in the city. It quickly expanded to include other buildings and operated continuously until the fall of Richmond in 1865. Appointed by Quartermaster General Abraham C. Myers, Major Richard P. Waller oversaw its operations. The bureau supplied forces in the Department of Virginia, including the Army of Northern Virginia, and was one of fourteen Confederate Quartermaster "clothing bureaus."

By November 1862, the RCB employed approximately 100 assistant Quartermasters, clerks, 60 full-time cutters, and 2,000 local piece workers who assembled clothing items such as jackets, trousers, shirts, drawers, and flags. By mid-1863, the number of piece workers had increased to nearly 3,500.

The organization of the RCB modeled that used by the Federal Army's Office of Clothing and Equipage at the Schuylkill Arsenal in Philadelphia (which had been established prior to the War of 1812). At both the Arsenal and the RCB, clothing pieces were cut out, packaged with thread and buttons, and distributed to piece workers – generally women who had relatives in the service- who returned the completed garments for payment. In April 1863, the RCB produced between 3,000 and 4,000 finished garments daily, with about 40,000 garments in production at any given time, including 10,000 of each type.

Army of Northern Virginia Battle Flags

In addition to garments for clothing Confederate forces in and around Richmond, the RCB produced the battle flags those forces carried from 1862 to 1865. Confederate military leaders in Virginia conceptualized the design of the first battle flags in September 1861, with ladies in Richmond sewing circles making the first ones to be issued and from silk. By May 1862, the RCB began the production and issuance of what would by 1865 be seven versions of the Army of Northern Virginia (ANV) battle flag, typically referred to as “bunting issues” (referencing the wool bunting from which they were made due to lack of silk). The RCB cut and distributed the flag kits to piece workers for completion in the same manner as it did for clothing.

In January 1863, the 13^th Alabama Infantry became part Archer’s Brigade, General A.P. Hill’s Division of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia’s Second Corps. Following the death of General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson at the Battle of Chancellorsville that May, General Hill assumed command of a new Third Army Corps, with Archer’s Brigade falling under the command of a new leader, General Henry Heath. By that summer, many regiments in the ANV needed new regimental flags – the 13^th Alabama Infantry being amongst those. At the time, the RCB was producing the “Third Bunting Issue” battle flags and In June 1863, all of Archer’s Brigade received new regimental colors of this type. The RCB contracted with a local painter, Lewis Montague, to stencil the regimental designations and battle honors onto the flags. It is this flag that the 13^th Alabama Infantry brought to Gettysburg.