Union forces captured several flags at Philippi on June 3, 1861, but accounts vary regarding how many were taken, who they belonged to, what they looked like, and where they are now. One often-overlooked flag belonged to the Bath Cavalry, also known as the Bath Grays, a company raised in the mountainous region of Bath County, Virginia, by Capt. Archibald T. Richards and mustered into service on May 14, 1861.
In Staunton, Mayor Nicholas K. Trout presented the company with a silk flag commissioned by their wives, mothers, and sisters back home and created by George Ruskell in Richmond. In Yanks from the South!, Fritz Haselberger described it as “an elegant green silk banner with gold bullion tassels and fringe. On it was the motto in gold letters, ‘GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT.’” He was partly correct.
Civil War History, Vol. 2, Issue 4 (December 1956) has the following description:
“This was a blue flag carried by the Bath Cavalry — a blue banner with the seal of Virginia on one side, and on the other ‘Presented by the Ladies of Bath — God Protect the Right.’”
A colorized image of the flag, simply labeled “Company Flag,” appeared in The Flags of the Confederate Armies, a record of captured Confederate flags returned to their respective states by the War Department in 1905.
In the patriotic fervor that accompanied secession in 1861, nearly every company secured its own flag, many of which were lost as the war went on. The Bath Cavalry lost its flag in its first engagement. During the rush to escape from Philippi as Union forces poured into town from two directions, they abandoned their supply wagon, which contained the elegant blue banner wrapped in its casing. Men from the 14th Ohio seized it.
As he presented the flag in Staunton, as reported in the Staunton Spectator, May 28, 1861, Mayor Trout said, “I now, in obedience to the wishes of the ladies of Bath, commit to your custody and guardianship this ensign with the assurance that tho’ it may be riddled by the bullets of the battlefield, or tattered by the pitiless storms of Heaven, as long as there is a strong arm and stout heart in your ranks to uphold it, it will never have a mark of dishour upon it, but shall be returned to the donors with a good report which will be joyfully welcomed by your countrymen and countrywomen, and itself be preserved for aftertime as a memorial of the second War of Independence.”
But the Bath Cavalry flag would never be unfurled in battle. It was taken to the War Department, where it was on display until returned to Virginia in 1905. Where is it now? It is kept at the American Civil War Museum in Richmond. You can see a color photo of the side with the Virginia state seal here.
Spirit of '61 