The battle flag of the Twenty-eighth Virginia Infantry Regiment was captured by the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. The storied Confederate banner has remained in St. Paul continuously since 1886, despite numerous requests to return it to its state of origin.
The flag is roughly square, measuring forty-four and a half inches tall and forty-eight inches wide, and is made entirely of wool, except for the white cotton stars and filets (bands). The design features thirteen white stars (representing the eleven Confederate states, plus Kentucky and Missouri) inside a white-edged blue diagonal cross, or saltire, upon a red field. The creator of its general pattern, Confederate States Representative William Porcher Miles of South Carolina, chose a diagonal cross to avoid religious associations and used red, white, and blue because they “are the true republican colors,” representing “valor, purity, and truth.”
The battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia was a practical tool of warfare that standard-bearers carried at the front line of battle to lead their military unit. Its visibility provided a clear reference point for soldiers during the heat of combat, but also made the bearer a crucial target for the enemy. Capturing the opponent’s flag practically guaranteed victory.
Pvt. Marshall Sherman of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment captured the flag during the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. On the second day of the battle, over three-fourths of the regiment’s men were killed or wounded after Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock ordered them to charge at the advancing Confederates, who outnumbered the Minnesotans five to one. The next day, the survivors participated in Pickett’s Charge, during which Private Sherman captured the battle flag of the Twenty-eighth Virginia Infantry Regiment by threatening its bearer (Lt. John Lee) with his bayonet. “Throw down that flag,” newspapers reported him saying, “or I’ll run you through.” The bravery of Sherman and the First Minnesota helped secure the Union’s pivotal victory at Gettysburg, which historians later recognized as the “high-water mark of the Confederacy.”
After the war, Sherman took the flag with him back to Minnesota. In 1867 the flag was sent to Washington, DC, to be inventoried by the War Department (note the “58” they stenciled on its top left corner), but the banner quietly returned to Minnesota in the late 1880s. Over the next few decades, it was displayed with other battle flags in the second Minnesota state capitol and in Civil War commemoration events. Although a 1905 congressional resolution authorized the secretary of war to return captured Civil War flags in the War Department's custody to their state of origin, this flag remained in Minnesota. It was formally accessioned by the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) in 1923.
On the occasion of the Civil War centennial in 1961, MNHS deaccessioned from its collection a Mississippi regimental flag captured by the Fourth Minnesota in the Battle of Allatoona in 1864, transferring it to the state of Georgia. This gesture prompted the Virginia Historical Society to request the return of the Twenty-eighth Virginia battle flag one week later. MNHS denied the request “because it has been so well documented in its relationship to the First Minnesota…that it has greater historical value if it remains in Minnesota than if it is returned to Virginia.” A Twenty-eighth Virginia reenactment group appealed again in 1998, asserting legal ownership of the flag. While the Minnesota attorney general disproved this claim, the controversy spurred much public comment and subsequent return requests from Virginia in 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2013. Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura notoriously responded to the 2000 request, “Why? I mean, we won. [...] We took it, that makes it our heritage.”
In 2007, MNHS became the new steward of the state’s historic military flag collection, previously cared for by the Minnesota adjutant general. MNHS conservators cleaned and mounted battle flags for a rotating annual display in the first-floor rotunda of the state capitol. Around this time, the Twenty-eighth Virginia flag received a custom mount. Originally, the flag had been made with triangular shapes cut larger than necessary, which created excess fabric. Consequently, the textile conservator made a mount with four raised pillows to provide support for the flag overall. A plexiglass display case provided another layer of protection, while a dark cloth shielded it from light exposure. The flag continues to be cared for by MNHS.