Dear Descendants of Soldiers of the 48th Regiment:Please read the Dedication and the last Chapter 11 of this book. They were written for you on the behalf of your ancestor. Chapter 11 was added on March 22, 2001 so it is unlikely that you have read it before.
News !! The Regimental Flag of the 48th Regiment has been found. The Long Island Historical Society that accepted the flag has since become the Brooklyn Historical Society, housed in the same building where the dedication took place. The building has been under reconstruction for the past two years. The flag was last viewed in 1989 when it was catalogued and packed into storage again. Curators estimate the cost of restoring the flag to be approximately $10,000.
There is currently a funding project underway in NY State to preserve the tattered and deteriorated regimental flags. Those are the flags that were once stored in the State capitol at Albany. I do not think the 48th Regimental flag is part of that project. You may read about it by clicking here.
We want to see that flag. We need to see that flag that meant so much to our ancestors as described in Chapter 11. I believe I can reconstruct it graphically no matter how tattered it is by this time.
I have written to New York State Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles E. Schumer to ask their assistence on locating and getting permission to view the 48th Regimental Colors. If you would add your voice to this appeal, perhaps it would help. Click on the names above to access their web sites and direct an email to them.
Besides the search for the Regimental flag, I have been investigating personal stories of our soldier ancestors. Many pictures have been added to my collection as well as a diary and letters. I will publish it in a readable format for all of us. If you would like to contribute stories, pension files, papers, photos, etc., please let me know. I will need your permission to share them.
Excerpt From Captain Knowles' Presentation Address ( given at the reunion of the Regiment in 1884 to receive it's returned Reg't flag)"Sir, we all belong to the color-guard to-night. We are but a remnant of that long line that filed down by Fort Hamilton that midnight hour twenty years ago to take the steamer for the South and destiny. Many of those noble hearts, sons of this great city, are sleeping in southern graves.
Providence has left us the sweet privilege of rallying once again around these standards, to lay them away, we trust, forever. I am deputed by my comrades to say to your Society through you: Take these sacred symbols of our loyalty : preserve them carefully ; hang them where our children and children's children to latest posterity may come and look upon them, and drink in patriotic inspiration, and sentiments of right and truth and unity, as flowers drink in the dew.
And may God grant that they may here learn to cherish the institutions we have helped to save, and value those principles of liberty, righteousness, and human brotherhood -- principles born of the Gospel of the Son of God -- which were rescued from impending peril by the blood of the heroes who fell beneath their folds, and who now lie sleeping in honored sepulchers ! " (Loud and prolonged applause)