Pair of 34-Star Civil War Parade Flags Satterlee General Hospital, Philadelphia 

Description

Pair of 34-Star Civil War Parade Flags Satterlee General Hospital, Philadelphia 

 

Exceptional matched pair of 34-star printed American parade flags, preserved together since the Civil War and directly associated with a flag-raising ceremony at West Philadelphia’s Satterlee General Hospital on October 8, 1862. Their survival as a pair, together with an original period inscription, provenance, elevates these well beyond typical Civil War parade flags we encounter.

 

Both flags are printed on thin cotton fabric and display the 34-star configuration officially representing the United States following the admission of Kansas in 1861. The cantons are particularly attractive, composed of stars of varying sizes arranged concentrically around a prominent central star distinctive and highly visual Civil War-period pattern. The flags retain strong red and blue coloration with expected age toning, minor staining, and edge wear consistent with their period use and preservation.

 

Most importantly, one flag bears the period ink inscription:

“Wednesday
Oct. 8th 1862 – Flag raising at West Phila. Hospital”

 

Uniquely the ink inscription provides an unusually specific date, location, and event, documenting the flag’s presence at a wartime patriotic ceremony connected with what became one of the most important military hospitals of the Civil War.

 

The West Philadelphia military hospital opened in 1862 and became known as Satterlee General Hospital, named for Brigadier General Richard Sherwood Satterlee, Medical Purveyor of the United States Army. Constructed on an enormous tract in West Philadelphia, the hospital ultimately contained approximately 4,500 beds in 34 wards, supplemented by hundreds of tents. During the war it treated thousands of sick and wounded soldiers, including enormous influxes of casualties following major campaigns and battles. Satterlee became one of the great medical institutions of the Union war effort.

 

Adding considerably to the provenance, the two flags were preserved in their original cloth-covered protective holder, which is period identified in ink:

“Walter Cresson”

“213 Winona Ave., Germantown.”

 

Walter Cresson (1815–1893) was a prominent Philadelphia businessman and member of the well-known Cresson family. Born in Philadelphia on March 11, 1815, he later resided in Germantown and was involved with his brother William in the manufacture of saws before selling the concern to Henry Disston in 1865. The survival of Cresson’s named protective holder together with both flags provides an important chain of provenance and strongly indicates that they were deliberately preserved as souvenirs of the October 8, 1862 flag-raising.

 

Small Civil War parade flags were inherently ephemeral objects—made to be carried, waved, displayed, and often discarded after the event for which they were produced. Finding two surviving together, one bearing a precise wartime inscription identifying an 1862 ceremony at a major Union military hospital, and both retained in their original Walter Cresson protective holder is extraordinary.

 

A remarkably evocative pair of Civil War flags with exceptional visual appeal and unusually strong documentation—a tangible survival from an October 8, 1862 patriotic flag-raising at Satterlee General Hospital, preserved together for more than 160 years.

 

Inventory Number: FLA 067