GDG- your memory after many years

[Biggsk at aol.com]

Hello one and all,
 
As many of you know, one of my areas of interest is military flags,  
particularly the Civil War and Napoleonic Wars.  One Civil War flag  incident I would 
like to cite as reference that sometimes you can indeed trust  the memory of 
someone involved even after many years.
 
In one of the Nashville newspapers in 1909, former Confederate Gen. Simon  
Bolivar Buckner, gave a lengthy interview about several topics of interest to  
Tennessee readers of the time.  In particular, he spoke about the Army of  
Central Kentucky based in Bowling Green, in which he commanded a division.
 
Buckner claimed to have designed the Hardee pattern battle flag (blue field  
with white circle in the center) while at Bowling Green, which is the first 
time  we flag historians had ever heard of it.  Since the name of the flag is 
the  Hardee battle flag (as it flew over his corps from late 1861 to late 1863), 
we  assumed that he had something to do with it.  Buckner also stated that 
his  wife and a local sewing circle made the first flags and that when he took 
part  of his division to Ft. Donelson, these flags went with them, which was 
their  first use in combat.
 
Nothing as late as 1976 when Howard Madaus did the first scholarly  work on 
Confederate flags, proved much of what Buckner claimed many years after  the 
war.  Then little by little, corroborating evidence came in.  I  found the name 
of another lady and her daughters that were part of the sewing  circle that 
made the flags (she also rented her house to AS Johnston as his HQ);  a flag of 
the pre-war Kentucky State Guard turned up, of which Buckner was  commander in 
1860-1861, that strongly resembles the Buckner/Hardee flag in  design; and 
lastly, evidence of several Buckner/Hardee flags taken at Donelson's  surrender 
also have turned up, with either existing flags or period accounts  with vivid 
descriptions of those flags from Union captors.
 
In other words, some 50 years later, Buckner was telling the truth about  the 
creation of these flags and his involvement in that and we have based this  
on other evidence discovered since his interview.  His memory was  rock-solid 
with regards to the flag.
 
Another posted here today that you can't even take as gospel reports  written 
right after the battle.  In my research in Union reports and  regimental 
histories regarding captured CSA flags, I have found that if the  report listed a 
flag capture the flag pretty much had to be sent to the War  Department.  If 
they did not list them, then the flags could be taken or  sent home, especially 
by officers.  Dozens and dozens of CS flags have long  since disappeared in 
this manner - and this was by planned omission, which  taints the validity of 
the report. If they left this out, what else was left out  - or fabricated?
 
Just more food for thought
 
Greg Biggs    - PS - thanks to those that posted the voting  records of 
Kentucky in 1864 - I forgot to thank you last  week.