Ghosts that should be preserved

As a kid, I remember standing in front of enormous glass cases in the Iowa Statehouse rotunda. Inside were dozens of battle flags from the Civil War and other conflicts, standing like silky ghosts, tattered and torn.

I'm sure I thought they were super cool, but having the attention span of a gnat, I probably moved on pretty fast. It's likely I wasn't the only gawker who didn't fully understand what I was gazing upon - banners that Iowa soldiers desperately defended with their lives and colors that had been captured from the enemy, likely at a very high price.

'Rally ‘round the flag, boys,” wasn't just some slogan for Americans fighting in the Civil War. Regimental colors were critical battlefield beacons that helped soldiers find their units amid the smoke, chaos and death. They embodied deep loyalties troops felt to their states, hometowns and each other. Capturing a flag was a prime objective and major triumph. Surrendering or losing your colors was unthinkable.

'The emotion of the conquered soldiery was really sad to witness,” wrote Gen. Joshua Chamberlain, recounting the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. 'Some of the men who had carried and followed those ragged standards through the four long years of strife, rushed, regardless of all discipline, from the ranks, bent about their old flags, and pressed them to their lips with burning tears.”

Iowa's ghosts from both sides of the battle lines are no longer hanging on poles in the Capitol. For the 14 years or so, conservationists have been working to carefully stabilize each fragile flag to help it live on for display to future generations. Some flags now are displayed on a rotating basis at the Capitol, and a new exhibit of up to 15 flags is planned in March for the State Historical Museum in Des Moines.

The good news is that half of the state's roughly 200 Civil War flags have been stabilized. The state has spent $1.8 million since 1999, but annual funding has slowed to a trickle in recent years. Lawmakers budgeted just $94,000 for flag preservation this year. Luckily, volunteers have stepped up in a big way to help the effort,

Lawmakers have a lot of competing needs to balance. But considering the importance of these banners, and the supreme sacrifices made to save or seize them, our current investment looks inadequate.

The State Historical Society is engaging in a master planning process looking at how best to care for and provide access to thousands of artifacts and archival records, including battle flags. Their fate matters.

Of the 51 Civil War soldiers, sailors and others listed by the historical society with Iowa ties who received the Medal of Honor, the act of valor listed for 19 of them is some variation of 'captured flag.” Another soldier was cited for braving enemy fire to save his unit's flag, and two others won after being wounded as they bore the colors.

Among them was Cpl. Voltaire P. Twombly, who carried the Second Iowa Regiment's colors after three other color-bearers fell in the struggle to seize Fort Donelson in Tennessee. Twombly refused to give up the flag even after being wounded himself.

Now it's our duty to make sure we don't give up on these flags.

l Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com