Down to their last dollars, the Grand Army of the Republic Museum and Library said it was forced to auction a rare battle flag carried by a regiment of Philadelphia's United States Colored Troops.
Philadelphia Inquirer
by Mike Newall
Published Mar 6, 2022
It’s a once-in-a-generation artifact that rings strikingly relevant: a Civil War battle flag carried by a Philadelphia regiment of Black soldiers — and hand-painted by David Bustill Bowser, the son of a fugitive slave and Philadelphia’s most acclaimed 19th-century Black artist.
On deep-blue silk with gold fringe, the regal regimental standard of the 127th United States Colored Infantry regiment depicts a soldier off to war, bidding adieu to Lady Columbia, the goddess of Liberty. An inscription captures the bitter burden set upon Black soldiers fighting for freedom: “We will prove ourselves men.”
In recent years, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Civil War Museum & Library in Frankford — Philly’s only remaining museum dedicated exclusively to the Civil War, and the flag’s caretaker for over a century — confronted a cruel choice over the once-tattered relic it had recently restored: Sell or shutter.
Down to nearly its last dollar and unable display the large flag in the cramped quarters of its crumbling mansion off Frankford Avenue, the modest museum decided to put the flag up for auction in 2019. It was promptly purchased for nearly $200,000 by the Atlanta History Center, home to one of the nation’s largest Civil War exhibitions. The Philadelphia flag, now so far south, is a centerpiece of the center’s lauded United States Colored Troops (USCT) collection.
And like that, another of Philadelphia’s financially strapped historical and cultural institutions surrendered a treasure just to keep afloat.
Joseph Perry, a retired city librarian, who serves as president of the GAR, founded in 1926 by Philadelphia Civil War veterans and their descendants, and now operated entirely by volunteers, described the sale as a “one-time shot” that rescued the museum while also securing a home where the 6-foot wide, double-sided flag — an eagle clutches an arrow on the back — could be displayed in full.
“Selling it cut us to the core,” said Perry, in a recent interview. “But our mission was preservation and sharing — and we got both. We got the money we needed, and the flag is restored and being seen. It was a win-win. That flag saved us.”
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