Civil War Flags

The Ninety-sixth Illinois Infantry was recruited during the summer of 1862 and organized at Camp Fuller in Rockford, Winnebago County, Illinois. The men for Companies A, E,[2] F, H, I and K were recruited from JoDaviess County and the men for Companies B, C, D and G from Lake County. The Regiment was mustered in for three years service on September 6, 1862. Wednesday morning, October 8 the Regiment marched to the depot of the Chicago & North-Western Railway and departed for Cincinnati. Companies D, I and K were detached from the Regiment[3] and sent to guard forts in the area and on October 19 Companies A, E, F, G and H were ordered to escort a commissary train into northern Kentucky and then proceed to Lexington, Kentucky. In November the Regiment moved to Harrodsburg, Kentucky to guard rebel prisoners and in December attempted to intercept Confederate troops commanded John H. Morgan at Lebanon Junction but the rebels escaped and the Ninety-sixth returned to Danville, Kentucky. January 1863 the Ninety-sixth was ordered to join the Army of the Cumberland and arrived at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River on February 3. From Fort Donelson the Regiment moved to Nashville and in March to Franklin, Tennessee. The Ninety-sixth skirmished with enemy forces under VanDorn during March and April and in June marched to Triune, Tennessee where they skirmished with Wheeler on June 11. Also while at Triune, the Army of the Cumberland was reorganized and the Ninety-sixth became part of the 1^st Brigade, 1^st Division of the Reserve Corps, under the command of General Gordon Granger.[4] The Regiment saw little action during the Tullahoma Campaign of June and July but in September embarked on the Chattanooga Campaign. In the march the men passed through Anderson and Stevenson, Tennessee, through Bridgeport, Alabama and crossed the Tennessee River. The columns turned east, marched through Whiteside, Georgia, crossed the nose of Lookout Mountain and moved into Lookout Valley. September 17, the Ninety-sixth marched south from Rossville, Georgia and September 19-22 was heavily engaged in the Battle of Chickamauga—the Regiment’s first battle. The Ninety-sixth, as part of Granger’s Reserve Corps saved the right of the Union lines but paid dearly—losing fifty per cent in killed and wounded or taken prisoner.[5] Following the Battle the Ninety-sixth marched through Chattanooga crossed the Tennessee River and went into camp on Moccasin Point. In the Chattanooga-Ringgold campaign of late November the Regiment fought at Lookout Mountain on November 23-24 and at Missionary Ridge on November 25. They encamped at Nickajack Cove until January 26, 1864 when the Regiment was ordered to cover the working party repairing the East Tennessee RR. In late February the Ninety-sixth was ordered to join Union forces operating against Dalton, Georgia, in that action the Regiment fought at Buzzard’s Roost Gap and Rocky Faced Ridge. In April 1864 the Ninety-sixth joined Sherman’s Atlanta campaign and fought at Rocky Faced Ridge, Resaca, Kingston, New Hope Church, Dallas, Pine Mountain, Kenesaw Mountain, Smyrna Camp Ground, Peach Tree Creek, Atlanta, Jonesboro and Lovejoy Station. In October the Regiment marched in pursuit of Hood into north Georgia and Alabama. In the Nashville campaign the Regiment and was heavily engaged November 30 at the Battle of Franklin. Falling back to Nashville, the Regiment fought in the Battle of Nashville December 15 and 16 and is credited with being the first to plant their colors on the enemy’s earthworks.[6] The Ninety-sixth joined in the pursuit of Hood to the Tennessee River then moved to Huntsville, Alabama. After operations in East Tennessee in March and April 1865 the Regiment moved to Nashville where it was mustered out on June 10, 1865.[7] The enlisted men of the Ninety-sixth Regiment Illinois Infantry whose term had not expired were transferred to the Twenty-first Regiment Illinois Infantry.

[1] Reception of the Ninety-Sixth Regiment Illinois Infantry Volunteers, at the Residence of General John C. Smith, December 16, 1889, Knight & Leonard Co., Printers, Chicago, 1890, page 21. Read as part of an address by General Smith.

[2] Companies E and H each had ten men who volunteered from Wisconsin.

[3] The companies of the Regiment were reunited November 4, 1862 at Lexington, Kentucky.

[4] General Order 177 issued when the Reserve Corps was formed stated that the flags carried by the Reserve Corps should have red, white and blue diagonal backgrounds. These flags are discussed in detail below.

[5] Partridge, Charles A., Ed., History of the Ninety-Sixth Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Brown, Pettibone & Co., Printers, Chicago (1887), page 211-2. Ten color guards from the Ninety-sixth bore flags in the Battle of Chickamauga. Only one, Corporal J. W. Swanbrough, returned after the battle, the other nine were killed or wounded.

[6] Ibid, Partridge, page 445

[7] Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Illinois, H.W. Rokker, State Printer and Binder, Springfield, Illinois, (1886), Volume V, pages 466-71.