Color Sergeants with weapons

[garyjd]

After using the SEARCH function I'm unable to come up with any information that shows Colr Sergeants carrying weapons, i.e. pistols, knives etc. The "mini-manual" on color guards in the Columbia Rifles Compendium does not mention this. I've looked at several photographs of Federal color guards and cannot find weapons carried by those entrusted with carrying the flag(s). Did the same apply to Confederate color guards as well? Thanks.~Gary

[Adjutant]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

Gary,

It seems that you have answered your own question! Having carried the colors before (both sides) I cannot imagine anything more awkward than trying to juggle a weapon and the colors (even just a knife or pistol would be almost impossible to actually use). I'd be interested to know if you research uncovers any color bearers who carried weapons, I have not uncovered any. Altough I might add that Andrew Toizer, Color Sergeant of the 20 Maine picked up and used a rifle musket, while holding the Regiment's National colors in the crook of his arm, at Gettysburg. However, this was unique enough to warrent mention.

[Justin Runyon]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

Beofre Rich Mountain I wrote a small article just for the guys doing CG there (pre CRRC publication) Since the original manuals are generally silent on CG's and absolutley silent (or so it would seem) on Color Sgt. carrying weapons, I did an examination of original CG images. The results, though not entirely scientific, were that no color bearer I could find appeard to have a weapon in the photograph. Further, only about half of them were wearing their cartridge boxes or waistbelts/bayonets.

[Michael Comer]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

Justin,

Just as an aside for my own curiosity, how many color bearers in those photographs were using some sort of holder for the flagstaff?

[aetius123]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

I also haven't seen any pictures of a color sgt with weapons; although, I think I've seen a picture with a color sgt using a flag holder. I'll search and see if I can find that picture again. I occasionally reenact with a color guard out of Austin, TX and our color Sgt does not carry any weapons, but he does use a flag holder. I'd be interested in any additional information.

John Winkler
Co K 6th TX

[Justin Runyon]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

I can't find my notes from the article so I have to go on memory alone. If I recall Flag holders were a minority in the photographs surveyed, but I can't recall the ratio.

[FlatLandFed]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

Friend Michael,

Just as an aside for my own curiosity, how many color bearers in those photographs were using some sort of holder for the flagstaff?

This is a studio/posed shot of the 6th New Hampshire, but the man with the National flag appears to have a holder, the man carrying the regimental flag does not, and neither apparently is armed. Not sure if the guidans (sp) are just for show of if the guys in the back row propped them up for the photo.

Hope that helps.
Paul Hadley

(Watch out for the short guy to the left of the regimental flag -- I've been told he had sand enough to survive more than a half dozen wounds and turned down a commission near the end of the war in favor of having the honor of returning the flag to the state. He's a shirttail ancestor, so I'm kinda proud of him don't ya know.)

[garyjd]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

I sure do appreciate the responses and I pretty much expected these very results. Though it seems logical to have some sort of weapon it's not practical. The bearer's primary job was carrying the flag, be it forward or in trying to rally broken troops. Sergeant Ben Crippen of the 143rd PA Vol at the Battle of Gettysburg is a great example. The man had no weapon, but a fist he repeatedly shook at advancing Confederates until he was killed. I also looked at the manuals and was unable to see weapons mentioned anywhere. I would say at least half or more of the bearers in images I looked at had a holder of some sort for the flag. Thanks again.~Gary

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

I'm not aware of CW flag bearers carrying weapons of any sort. However, in some situations the regimental color sergeant (US) may have had a long-arm because, in some units, he marched in the front rank between the two colors instead of carrying one.

I forget the source, but I have read one account of a color bearer using the lance to spear an enemy soldier. Certainly, the task of manhandling the flag and lance through thickets and brambles and trying to hang onto it in battle would have absolutely precluded any use of pistols or knives, and in a battle where the enemy was close the color guard was tasked with defending the flags, and that did not mean, "drop the colors so you get out your trusty six-shooter or knife".

Hosmer's excellent memoir, "The Color Guard", is entirely online and readable by anyone. I posted the URL for it in a thread on color guards on this forum last autumn, I believe. In any event, it's easy to find with a Google search.

[Justin Runyon]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

Your absolutely right Kevin, and I should have brought that up or at least made it more clear. The true make up of the color guard itself, as I'm sure kevin will attest to, varies from account to account. Naturally at those times when two colors were born by cpl.s in the front rank, the color Sgt. marching in the center would have been armed. For ease of conversation, we should be clear that the color bearer is unarmed, but that does not always imply that he is the color sergeant.

[boozie]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

I'm not saying it was common at all, but here is a color sergeant who did carry a weapon.

Source: Echoes of Battle, The Struggle for Chattanooga
Authors: Richard A Baumgartner / Larry M. Strayer
Published By: Blue Acorn Press, 1996
Page 346

'His aim was a little to high'

Color Sergeant George L. Banks
15th Indiana Volunteer Infantry

"At Mission Ridge, when we first started in the charge, the Twenty-sixth Ohio was in our front but soon gave way, the Fifteenth taking their place. I was slightly wounded in the left thumb at the bottom of the Ridge. when the regiment reached the road well up the Ridge it was a perfect hail storm of bullets, and we went down on our faces in the road. It seemed for a moment as though we would stay there, when in my rear I heard someone say,"Men, for God's sake,forward!"

Looking around, I saw Major (Frank) White standing in that storm of bullets. I immediately got on my feet, raised the flag and started forward, calling on the boys to follow their flag. All company formation was broken, the boys from every company rallying 'round the flag. We had gone but a short distance when I was struck by a small ball, about one inch below the heart. It passed through a novel I had been reading which I thrust inside my blouse when called into line, also two letters, striking the rib but not having force enough to break through. It followed the rib to the right and lodged over the pit of my stomach. I had the ball cut out four days later.

I was knocked down and was senseless for a moment. While I was lying on the ground, four comrades raised the flag and were shot down-two killed and two wounded. When I got on my feet I saw the flag fall but a short distance up the hill. I found I was not disabled and reached the flag, raised it again, and with the boys rallying around me, we went on. When but a short distance from the works on the creast of the Ridge, we saw the Johnnies' guns being lowered over the works at us. We dropped to the ground and the volley passed over our heads without injury, and before they could reload we were on the works and killed or captured nearly all in our immediate front.

When I planted our flag on the works, the flag of the 13th Louisiana was flying on the works a few feet to my right. I fired six shots from my revolver over the works and dropped my hand on the log. A noise caused me to look down, and there was a Johnny leveling his gun at me. I turned my head, intending to jump off, but he was too quick for me. His aim was a little to high, his ball hitting me on the right side, just back of the crown of my head,plowing a furrow in my skull and the holes in my scalp being two or three inches apart. Second Lieutenant Thomas Graham seized my flag as I fell off the works backward, and carried it over the works. As soon as I was able to walk I was ordered to the rear by Major White, commanding the regiment, and I obeyed orders very willingly. The flag was carried through the balance of the foght by Corporal Page."

[garyjd]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

Hosmer's excellent memoir, "The Color Guard", is entirely online and readable by anyone. I posted the URL for it in a thread on color guards on this forum last autumn, I believe. In any event, it's easy to find with a Google search.

Kevin, I did happen to find this book online during my search for information.~Gary

[KCLoewe]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

Just to jump on board there is a book called Four Years Campaigning witht the Army of the Potomac by Color Sgt. Dan Crotty. He was the CG for the 3rd MI. from the beginning to the end and even given that job when the 3rd and 5th MI's got combined in 1864 as the 5th MI. I don't have the book handy as it is packed getting ready for moving to a new house currently, but I do remember references by him mentioning going on picket/guard duty a few times. Andt the Wilderness he mentions almost getting killed because he had the colors. A Confederate put a musket up to him and demanded the colors, he turned to run and tripped as he heard a round go right over his head. Then the rest of the regt. (was in retreat) turned and stormed forward to recover the flag thinking mr. Crotty had just been killed.
I don't know if this helps at all, I wish I had the book handy to reference it better. Maybe some else has it handy to give the references.

[boozie]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

I forgot to mention that Color Sergeant Banks also recieved the Medal of Honor for his actions on Missionary Ridge.

https://www.ai.org/iwm/battleflags/15ind.html

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: Color Sergeants with weapons

The true make up of the color guard itself, as I'm sure kevin will attest to, varies from account to account.

Agreed. At times a regiment's color guard (Federal army) had nine men in three ranks of three men each, and at times it was six men in two ranks. Some units had one flag, many had two, and a few even had three in the field simultaneously. I would not be surprised if someone posted an account of some other type of color guard composition in some regiment during the war.

Regardless, the color guard's job was--and I hope this isn't a surprise to anyone--to guard the colors. The color guard, as I understand it, typically did not fire their weapons unless the colors were threatened. While there's loads of documented incidents when a color bearer was out in front of his regiment while the bullets flew thick, where the color bearer(s) was/were suposed to be during a fight--when the regiment was stationary and firing--was even with the second rank, leaving a three-man "gap" in the front rank. I'd presume this was both to avoid having the colors shot through by their own regiment, and to place the colors a couple feet further back in the event of close-combat.

The "plain, everyday, common" color guard was six or nine men, with one sergeant and the rest corporals (in theory), carrying one or two flags. On the topic of this thread, if I were carrying a flag at a reenactment, and had no historic documentation to the contrary for that regiment at that time of the war, I would avoid carrying any weapons at all. Conversely, if there's documentation for that regiment in "that" historic situation, then do what "they" did at the time.

I want to observe here that this discusion strikes me as akin to the common discussion (common on some forums, that is) of artillery reenactors asking if Civil War artillerymen carried carbines, pistols, etc. "for defense". Just like artillerymen had this weapon called a cannon for "self defense" (much more effective than a pistol or carbine, and quicker to load most of the time!), a color bearer did not fight or "defend" himself per se--the rest of the regiment, particularly the armed men in the color guard--was charged with defending the flags. Yes, folks can document a few color bearers with a pistol or knife, and certainly some artillerists carried small-arms for whatever reason, but TYPICALLY there's no need for "self defense" when you're carrying the flag.