Derry Hill
Home Of The H.C. Auletta Clan
The Flag
The Civil War flag from the Battle of Chickamauga at Chattanooga, as it looks today, 2008. Photo provided by Dan York.
“Would you like to shake the hand that shook the hand that shook the hand of Abraham Lincoln?” So would my mother greet people throughout her life. It was one of her favorite sayings. And it was true. She actually did shake the hand that shook the hand of old Honest Abe. It was her great grandfather, and his name was Charles Wesley Wendell Hurd.
By the time my mother was born, he was already an old man. “He was tall,” explained my mother, “About 6’ 8” and thin, with chiseled features and long scraggly white hair and a big white beard.”
Imagine, if you will, a tall skinny Santa Claus.
“In fact, that’s what I called him – Grandpa Santy Claus!” she added. He died when she was 3 ½ years old. I think the height estimate might have been slightly colored by that perspective.
My mother was too young (and he too old) to know what color Charles’s hair was in his prime, but odds were it was black. “My grandmother’s hair was jet black, and so was her sister’s. Black curly hair ran in that side of the family. They all had very white skin, blue eyes, and black hair.” If that sounds pretty striking, it was. A natural beauty ran on that side of the family, Great Aunt Carrie (Grandma Miller’s sister) was the very first Miss Huntington. A beauty queen paraded down Main Street via horse and wagon. Fascinating, if I say so myself.
As children we were all quite familiar with Grandpa Hurd, for his name hung on the wall beneath an old family relic of the Civil War, a torn and bloodied flag from the Battle of Chickamauga.
He had begun his military career in New York City. He got there by riding down in the back of a covered wagon from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The whole trip down, he and his brothers, cousins, uncles, and various male members of the family argued over which side to enlist in, North or South. Charles chose North, and left for the South soon after. He was all of 14 years old. In those days, if you were tall enough, you were old enough. And Charles was already over 6’ 1” tall. As tall as a man. As tall as a hero.
I had heard the story often growing up. Men took the flag much more seriously during the Civil War era. To see one’s flag fall in battle was a demoralizing event, and therefore an act much desired by the opposing side. This resulted in many a Flag Bearer feeling as if he had a huge target painted on his chest. It was a dangerous occupation.
The Chickamauga Battlefield, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park
“He was in the war at Chattanooga, Chickamauga,” related my mother, “ ... his flag bearer was running in front of him, and he got shot and he went down and the flag was falling … and in those days you would never let your flag touch the ground … and he grabbed the flag, pulled it off the [pole], and he shoved it in his tunic.” Charles then promptly got shot himself, and bayoneted, with the blades and musket balls ripping though the flag as well as the flesh.
How long he lay on the battlefield we’ll never know. Nor the pain and fear that the young boy felt as man after man fell beside him, arms blown off, legs cut through, and faces shattered into pulp. It is said that the battle of Chickamauga was the bloodiest two days in American warfare. But Charles Hurd did not die that day. If he did, I wouldn’t be writing this. And most of you wouldn’t be reading this. Because none of us would have ever been born.
Instead, Charles was sent to a hospital to recover. Which he did, eventually boarding a train for the long ride northward and home. It was while he was waiting for the train to take him back to New York that he met Abe Lincoln. Lincoln had come to visit the many wounded men from the battles at Chickamauga and Chattanooga. He thanked them, and wished them well on their journey back home. And as he strolled the loading dock shaking hand after hand after hand, my great great grandfather reached out his palm, Lincoln took it in his, and gave it a hardy shake. A strong, firm shake I’m sure, judging by the looks of the man.
Somehow, somewhere, the young wounded soldier managed to keep the flag he risked his life to protect. Whether it was freely given in honor of his sacrifice, or quietly tucked away while all eyes were diverted elsewhere, who’s to say. But back home it came, and the tall, war weary boy-turned-man quietly folded it up, placed it inside an ordinary brown paper bag, and hid it away on the top shelf of some closet, up among the boutonnieres, hat pins, saddle shoes and hat boxes of his mother. Too dear to the heart to throw away, yet too close to the soul to display. He labeled it with a brief history, “Pvt. Charles Wesley Wendell Hurd, The Battle of Chickamauga at Chattanooga, September 1863”.
When he died, the Flag was left to his daughter, Lillian Silvia (Grandma Miller). And when she grew old herself, she passed it down to my mother, Marjorie Jane Auletta Yarotzkey Zinkand. “I got the Flag when I was 18,” she related, “Grandma gave it to me because I was the only girl, and she didn’t want to have a fight between my brothers and Buddy Miller, so she said, ‘Here – you’re the youngest and the only girl, so I’m giving it to you and I’ll probably have to face them.’ ”
“I remember when I got the Flag, it had bayonet tears in it, and it still had his blood on it.”
A young Brian standing in front of the Flag, around 1966. Note the fold in the stripes. Photo provided by Blayde York.
My mother decided the Flag should be displayed proudly on the wall, not hidden away in a paper bag, so she had it framed. I can recall staring up at the war-torn, frayed and faded Flag as a child. The bottom few stripes were missing, and were already gone when my mother inherited it. No one knows how they got torn off. The remaining ones were speckled with rust-brown splotches, all that remained of Charles’s oxidized blood. The dark blue star-field contained not the familiar 50 stars of modern flags, but 13 stars, with one star displayed in each corner, eight stars arranged prominently in a central circle, and one larger star occupying the center point. It was mounted on a background of white, and below the flag, in the bottom right hand corner, was its history, transferred from the paper bag.
The frame that held it was a few inches too short, which resulted in an unfortunate fold in the stripes. No one ever really liked having that crease in the fabric, and my mother would always say, “Some day I’m going to have that flag re-framed, in the right size frame.” When she moved to Florida, the glass in the frame got broken, but instead of getting put right back into a new, roomier frame, it got stuck back into a brown paper bag. In fact, it was the same bag it originally came out of. She had kept it. And there it sat for several years. I’m sure any museum curator would be cringing if they knew that. Finally it was taken back out, and put in a proper frame (although I’m not crazy about the deep blue color chosen for the background – it makes it hard to see the flag). It now hangs proudly on my mother’s apartment wall up in Olivebridge, New York. The blood is now faded so much you can’t really see it. The bullet holes and bayonet slashes have gotten bigger, with new holes appearing every year. And the top left corner star fell out, but when it was re-framed in Florida, the framer managed to set it back in place. It’s a delicate piece of history, and showing its age.
The Flag as it looked after a few years in the brown paper bag. When we were down in Florida for Rick Zinkand's funeral (around 1997), my mother took it out of the bag and Blayde took this photo of it. It was soon to be re-framed. Note the extra star set into the large hole in the star circle, resulting in a ring of nine stars, not the original eight. It is the deteriorated corner star, which actually belongs in the upper left corner. Photo by Blayde York.
The Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga
I was always intrigued by the battle the Flag came from, and never was really clear as to why it was called Chickamauga and Chattanooga. Was it the battle of Chickamauga AT the town of Chattanooga? Or was the battle called Chattanooga and took place AT Chickamauga (whatever that might be – A town? A farm? A ridge?) So now, with the miracle of modern day information technology, I did a web search and finally found out.
There were actually two separate battles. The Battle of Chickamauga, in northwest Georgia, was first, and was won by the South. The Battle of Chattanooga, twenty six miles away in Tennessee, was fought two months later, with the North victorious. Both were part of the same Union campaign to take Chattanooga, considered the gateway to the deep south. The battles were of such significance, that in 1890 they jointly became the first National Military Park in America, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.
Map of the Battle of Chickamauga, circa 1893.
The Battle of Chickamauga was fought between the Union Army of the Cumberland (commanded by Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans) and the Confederate Army of Tennessee (commanded by Gen. Braxton Bragg), and was named for Chickamauga Creek, which flows into the Tennessee River about 3 1/2 miles northeast of downtown Chattanooga. There seems to be some confusion on the actual dates of the battle. Some sites say The Battle of Chickamauga took place from Sept.19th to the 21st, 1863. But others say it began the evening before, and lasted from the 18th to the 20th. Either way, it was three days of hell. As one author wrote, “The scene of the battle was one where neither Bragg nor Rosecrans wanted to fight. The thick forest limited visibility to 150 feet, less than the range of a rifle. Cannon were useless, except in the occasional field that broke the heavy forest. Battle lines did not exist and enlisted men made tactical decisions. Often the fighting was hand-to-hand. Both generals realized that neither would come out a clear winner under these conditions. Yet, just as at Gettysburg, the field on which the men fought was not the choice of generals but the choice of fate.”
Union casualties were around 16,200 and Confederate losses around 18,000. It was the most significant Union defeat in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.
In an attempt to regroup, the Union troops retreated into Chattanooga (no doubt carrying the wounded pvt. Hurd with them). The Confederates pursued, occupying Missionary Ridge, Lookout Mountain, and Chattanooga Valley. By placing artillery on the heights overlooking the river and blocking the roads and rail lines, the Southerners prevented Federal supplies from entering the city. Rosecrans had few choices, surrender or starve. Or try to hold on.
Aware of Rosecrans' plight, Union authorities in Washington ordered reinforcements to his relief. General Joseph Hooker came from Virginia late in October with 20,000 men and General William T. Sherman brought in 16,000 more from Mississippi in mid-November. Thomas replaced Rosecrans as head of Army of the Cumberland and General Ulysses S. Grant assumed overall command.
By the end of November, the Confederate stranglehold was broken, the siege ended, and the final battle of Chattanooga fought and won (Nov. 23–25, 1863). The Union armies now controlled the city and nearly all of Tennessee. The next spring, Sherman used Chattanooga for his base as he started his march to Atlanta and the sea. And the rest, as they say, is history.
So there you have it, a brief glimpse into the times and travails of Pvt. Charles Wesley Wendell Hurd, and the flag he saved and brought back, all bloodied and torn, from the Battle of Chickamauga, at Chattanooga, in the year 1863. He left some of his blood in the ground at Chickamauga, and some of it in the red, white and blue of the Flag, and some of it in the veins of us all.
Links (and sources)
National Park Service, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, Georgia, Tennessee
Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (a web site where you can look up people who served in the Civil War - there are several Charles W. Hurd's from New York)
Chickamauga, River of Death (a video documentary you can buy at Amazon)
Battle of Chickamauga Wikipedia entry
Battle of Chattanooga Wikipedia entry
cwmm97_The_Civil_War_Flag.mp3 An audio recording of Marje recounting the story of the Flag
cwmm73_Family_Civil_War_Stories.mp3 An audio recording of Marje telling Civil War stories