Advance the Colors

Pennsylvania's Civil War Battleflags

Reviewed by Jim Womer

by Dr. Richard A. Sauers and the Capitol Preservation Committee

This wholly unique and limited edition two volume hardbound reference work fully lives up to its promotional billing as the first exhaustive study of a northern states Civil War battleflags. To use a term such as comprehensive to describe this study is to engage in serious understatement; it is better deacribed as authoritative in the sense that nothing more could be done today and as setting the standard to be met if not exceeded by any similar effort by any other state, North or South. Richly detailed and patently a first class piece of contemporary historical scholarship, it is written in an intelligent straightforward atyle for the general public as well as the student and historian of Civil War flags.

Every surviving flag in the possession of the Commonwealth of Pennaylvania is presented in a high resolution, full color photograph printed on durable glossy stock. In the North, most regimental flags were returned to the respective states at the end of the regiment's service and the book discusses this process and exceptions: in 1905, as part of the ongoing national reconciliation, the War Department returned captured and identifiable flags to their original atates. Not only are remnants of the original flags presented, but second and even third replacement colors issued by the Commonwealth are pictured together with local and even individual presentation nags. While you still have to go to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. to see the first flag of the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves (known as "The Bucktails" or as "Kane's Rifles"), included in this book is the standard presented to the "Bucktails" by the 149th Pennsylvania.

If you want to know what were the flags actually carried in the field by the 83rd Pennsylvania, it is in this book. Those of you who think it is accurate to put models of Pennsylvania regiments on a tabletop with the standard National and/or Army Regimental colors are in for a surprise: the photographic evidence and the text clearly infer that the preferred colors actually carried in the field by the majority of theae regiments were the unique state variant of the National Flag, often embellished with battle honors.

Other non-color prints include the unusual and remarkable aeriea of regimentals issued to Negro regiments raised in Pennsylvania which later served as U.S. Colored Troops. By way of background, pre-Civil War Pennsylvania flags are also presented with a discussion of the state and its militia in earlier American Wars.

If the authors had simply presented the surviving flags, that would have been a useful contribution. But in trying to present the known history of the individual flags, they could not avoid some mention of the combat service of most of 215 regiments that Pennsylvania raised or attempted to raise in waging the war between the states. In addition to a frank discussion of the loss of colors and some heroic efforts to present that diagrace, you get a concise and useful discussion of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps which became the Pennsylvania Reserve Division and was the only division in the Union Army which was composed of troops from the same state throughout its entire service.

While one appendix lists the names of the known colorbearers, another corrects Bates standard reference History of Pennsylvania Volunteers with details of regimental organizations and the names of individual companies. Period photographs, many with intriguing uniform details, enrich and flavor the work. Otherwise stated, you get a concise yet detailed summary of Pennsylvania'a contribution to suppressing the Great Rebellion (or the War for Southern Independence, depending on your point of view).

The drawback of this quality product is its ninety dollar price tag plus shipping and state sales tax. If the occaaional ACW player/gamer is not its market, the student of flags and the Civil War buff certainly is. Moreover, because it is both high quality and limited edition, Advance the Colors has some prospects of becoming a sought-after collector'a item. Having enjoyed playing with military history for a number of years and aware that the actual flags themselves are in an advanced state of accelerating decay, I rationalized by my purchase on the quaint notion that some of my hard earned money might be used to preserve a piece of history for future generations. True, I did not buy figures that month, but I was not disappointed with the purchase and even experienced something akin to satisfaction. For further information, contact the Capitol Preservation Committee, Room 30, Capitol Annex Building, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120-0028 (717-782-6484).

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© Copyright 1993 The American Civil War Society

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