Volume 8 — NO NAMES OF VICTORIES OVER FELLOW-CITIZENS ON REGIMENTAL COLORS.

Resolution in the Senate, May 8, 1862.

In a despatch announcing the capture of Williamsburg, May 6th, General McClellan inquired whether he was “authorized to follow the example of other generals and direct the names of battles to be placed on the colors of regiments.” This gave occasion to the following resolution, moved by Mr. Sumner.

RESOLVED, That, in the efforts now making for the restoration of the Union and the establishment of peace throughout the country, it is inexpedient that the names of victories obtained over our fellow-citizens should be placed on the regimental colors of the United States.

Mr. Hale objected to its consideration; so it was postponed.

May 13th, Mr. Wilson introduced a joint resolution to authorize the President to permit regiments of the volunteer forces to inscribe on their flags the names of battles in which such regiments have been engaged; but no further action was had upon it.

Mr. Sumner’s resolution excited comment at the time. The National Intelligencer remarked:—

“Now that public attention has for the first time been called to the subject, we presume there will be on the part of many an instinctive approval of the grounds on which Senator Sumner condemns the custom thus originated and practised by ‘other generals.’ … When the Union is restored and peace has been reëstablished, we take it that the regimental colors of the United States will preserve no trace either of Union victories or Union defeats. The name of ‘Springfield,’ in Missouri, would otherwise perpetually remind us of the unhappy fall of Lexington in that State.”

An excellent citizen of New York, Alfred Pell, wrote that “exactly what Congress should do with base Secession standards and flags was pointed out by Mrs. Brownrigg, who

Other testimony was from an undoubted authority, being none other than Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, in his autobiography. After quoting the famous resolution which Rufus King laid upon the table of the Senate, February 18, 1825, fifteen days before he finally left that body, which he calls “a benign resolution,” to the effect, that, as soon as the remnant of the national debt should be discharged, the net proceeds of the whole of the public lands should constitute a fund for Emancipation, the Lieutenant-General proceeds:—

“The resolution stands a national record. Here is statesmanship, farsightedness.… Here is magnanimity, considering the hostility of the South on account of Mr. King’s powerful resistance to the admission of Missouri into the Union with Slavery. Here is a Christian’s revenge, returning good for evil. All honor to a great deed and a great name!.…

“I place in juxtaposition with the foregoing a kindred sentiment that gleamed in the same body on a more recent occasion.

“It had been proposed, without due reflection, by one of our gallant commanders engaged in the suppression of the existing Rebellion, to place on the banners of his victorious troops the names of their battles. The proposition was rebuked by the subjoined resolution, submitted by the Hon. Mr. Sumner, May 8, 1862.”

Then quoting the resolution, the Lieutenant-General adds:—

“This was noble, and from the right quarter.”[309]