Nelson Pioneer Farms “Company Flag” Gets Attention From Civil War Group
1/Lt. David Lamb, Commander of Company "A" 49th Regiment Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry
During a recent article covering the Nelson Pioneer Farm on July 8th that paid tribute to Cyrus West we wanted to correct an error in our story. David M. Lamb, Commander of Company “A” 49th Regiment Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry sent a minor correction to our story. The flag that was given to Lamb to bring back to the State Historical Museum is a “Company Flag” (meaning one that was not government issued, and probably made by some local community for it’s own sons to take off to the war with them) and it was one of a set of flags that was carried by Company “D” of the 22nd Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
Lamb went on to give some history of Company “D” of the 22nd Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
“The 22nd was organized in Iowa City in late August and early Sept of 1862 (so it is probably that many of them came from your area) and mustered into Federal service on September 9 of that year. The moved to St. Louis, Mo over the period of September 14-18th and then on to Rolla, MO, arriving there on the 23rd. They remained in garrison there until February when the moved South to see action at Champions Hill, Big Black river, Vicksburg , Jackson, and across Louisiana and into Texas before being moved to City Point, Virginia and on Washington, D. C. and then formed part of Sheridan’s Army of the Shenandoah and fought at several engagements up and down the Shenandoah valley in the closing months of 1864-65 before moving on to occupy Savannah, Georgia as part of Sherman’s Armies.. They were in Savannah at the end of the war and mustered out there on July 25, 1865.”
Lamb gave the causality numbers for the unit as “Killed in action were 6 officers and 108 enlisted men; 1 officer and 135 enlisted men died of disease during service.”
“We are doing the conservation treatment on this flag and have fully documented her for the first time. The flag is one of the nicest “Great Star Patterned” (meaning that the 34 stars on the canton are themselves positioned into the shape of a star) flags that we have ever seen. The 49th Iowa is taking care of the conservation treatment for the Nelson Pioneer Museum and Amy and the folks at the museum are going to try to raise funds to have a custom conservation frame made for this large flag so that it can be properly displayed there at the museum and be protected be a professional framing for display on the walls.
If you would like to help, you can contact the group at http://www.iowavalor.com/
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