Specializing in Authentic Civil War Artifacts
  • 1866 The Lost Cause with Fragments of American Flag Torn Down in New Orleans / Sold

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    1866 The Lost Cause with Fragments of American Flag Torn Down in New Orleans – Inventory Number: FLA 045 / Sold

    First edition copy of The Lost Cause; A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates by Edward A. Pollard. Page 259 contains three original fragments of the American Flag that was raised by the United States Marines over the US Mint on April 26, 1862. Two 1-inch squares are attached to brown paper and glued to the center of the page. A third fragment 9 inches long serves as a bookmark to the page. The incident pertaining to the flag is related in the paragraph below the square fragments. 

     “A shocking incident of Butler’s despotism in New Orleans was the execution of William B. Mumford, a citizen of the Confederate States, charged with the singular crime of having taken the Federal flag from the United States Mint, which was done before the city had surrendered, and was, in any circumstances, but an act of war. He was condemned to death for an insult to the enemy’s ensign. It was scarcely to be believed that on such a charge a human life would be taken, deliberately and in cold blood. Butler was inexorable. The wife and children of the condemned man piteously plead for his life. Butler’s answer was cruel and taunting. A number of citizens joined in a petition for mercy. Butler answered that some vicious men in New Orleans had sent him defiant letters about Mumford’s fate; that an issue had been raised, that is was “to be decided whether he was to govern in New Orleans of not”-and he decided it by keeping the word he had first pronounced, and sending Mumford to the Gallows.”

    Comes housed in a 14 x 26 inch display case with black velvet backing and descriptive card.

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    Inventory Number: FLA 045 / Sold