“Battle Flag Day – Still Remembered One Hundred Years Later”
(The Des Moines Register, August 11, 1994)
On August 10, 1994, one of the most emotionally charged events in Iowa’s history was commemorated in Des Moines. Three hundred flag-waving descendants of Iowa Civil War veterans, many wearing Civil War era costumes, retraced the route followed by their forefathers 100 years ago that day.
As they paraded down Locust Street, led by the Iowa National Guard’s 34th Army Band, participants were reenacting a historic event. On August 10, 1894, about 5,000 Iowa veterans of the Civil War marched behind their regimental battle flags for the last time.
The men came from all parts of the state to carry 135 flags from the state arsenal on First Street to the Capitol. There they were deposited in glass display cases where they remain to this day. (Note: The flags are currently undergoing preservation treatment and are in the custody of the State Historical Society.)
The original event was filled with emotion. A crowd of thousands lined Locust Street for a solid mile. “None cheered – their hearts stirred too deep,” said one account….”The occasion was too great for noise. There were white-haired mothers whose sons lay dead on Southern battlefields, and sisters whose brothers filled nameless graves in the dark forests of the South.
“My boy fell defending that flag,” said one old man as the banner of his son’s regiment passed by.
“The crowd gave way till the color bearers could let the old man touch the sacred colors with his hands.”
No captured flags were carried in that original procession, though Iowa men had captured more flags than they had regiments. Hatred and revenge were forgotten on that day of solemn gratitude and remembrance.
This year’s march (1994) was also not lacking in emotion. Participants could not help but ponder the emotions and feelings that must have been experienced by those old soldiers 100 years ago as they reminisced on battles long past and comrades lost.
Joyce Kampas of Des Moines, granddaughter of Private Edward J. Bebb, a member of the Fourth Iowa Cavalry from Henry County, covered the parade route in a wheelchair with help from her grandsons, Aaron and Christopher Brown. She carried a sign saying that Bebb, a Medal of Honor winner, had captured a Confederate battle flag.
Perhaps most remarkable of all, Governor Terry Branstad, during a memorial ceremony on the south side of the Capitol at the conclusion of the march, presented proclamations to the sons of two Union Army veterans – Jake Thompson of Ottumwa, whose father, Alester, was a member of the 182nd Ohio Infantry and John Brandon of Albia, whose father, also named John, fought with the 6th Wisconsin Infantry.
The eighty-five year-old Thompson (whose father was 72 when Thompson was born) remembers his father being with Sherman at Atlanta. The eighty-one year-old Brandon (whose father was 69 when Brandon was born) recalls listening to his father tell stories about the war. “I was just a little boy,” Brandon remembers. “He told me a lot about it. Kids weren’t interested in (Civil War history) then. I am now.” It was a sentiment shared by many others in attendance.